ALEXANDER     III 


THE 


NEW    EXODUS 


A  STUDY   OF  ISRAEL  IN    RUSSIA 


HAROLD    FREDERIC 

AUTHOR    OF    "in    THE    VALLEY,''    ETC. 


WITH  IL  L  US  TRA  TIONS 


New  York:   G.  P.   PUTNAM'S   SONS 

London:    W.    HEINEMANN 
1892 


r     ^  •  ^^h*  <^ 


To  the  ^I em  or  J  of 

geoRge  yo^es, 

The  Founder  of  a    great  C^ezuspaper 

and 
The  Lifelong    Qhtimpion  of  good  Q'iuses, 

This   Uoiu?ne, 

Ozving  its  existence,  as  it  does,  to  the 

T)eep  and  Sympathetic  Interest 

With   which  the  Horrors  of  the  Jewish  Persecution 

in   Russia  filed  his   Last   'Days, 

is  reverently   Dedicated. 


DS 
IdS 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 
I. 

II. 

111. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XY. 


"  r.\RA    DOMOI  1  "      . 

THE   PARIAH   COMMUNITY 


THE   P.ARP.ARIAN    AND    HIS    STORY 

P.EOINNINGS   OF   THE   RUSSO-JEWISH   QUESTION 

UNDER   THE   "SECOND    HAMAN "   . 

"THE   GOLDEN   AGE"       . 

IGNATIEFF   AND   THE    MAY    LAWS   . 

THE  CZAR   AND   HIS   COUNSELLORS 

THE   HOLY    SYNOD    AT   WORK 

THE   APPOINTMENT   OF   SERGE 

HOLY   MOSCOW'S  TRAGIC   PASSOVER 

-MARINA    ROSTSCHA    AND   THE    "CIRCULARS'" 

THE    FLIGHT   FROM    MOSCOW 

ST.    PETERSBURG,   ODESSA,    AND    KIEFF 

ISRAEL   IN    EXILE 

APPENDICES 

INDEX 


PAGE 
I 

19 

36 

54 
72 
90 
112 
133 
'53 
171 
192 
209 
229 
245 
266 
287 
295 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


ALEXANDER   III 

RUSSIAN    PEASANT   TYPES  .... 

ALEXANDER    II 

H.I.H.   THE   GRAND   DUKE   VLADBUR       . 

"the  GRAND   INQUISITOR"    .... 

H.I.H.   THE  GRAND   DUKE  SERGE    . 

PRINCE  DOLGOROUKOFF  .... 

THE    COSSACK,   GEN.   YOURKOFFSKV 

THE   SMOLENSKI    RAILWAY    STATION,    INIOSCOW 


.   Frontispiece 

.    To  face  page 

5° 

>» 

90 

)i 

146 

)j 

148 

!> 

170 

•> 

184 

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290 


THE    NEW    EXODUS 

CHAP  TER    I 

"PARA    DO  MO  I.'" 

Edmund  Burke  confessed,  over  a  century  ago,  that 
he  knew  not  the  method  of  drawing  up  an  indict- 
ment against  a  whole  people.  The  task  is  no 
easier  now  than  it  was  in  1775.  Moreover,  the 
world's  jury,  grown  callous  to  sensation  and  wearied 
with  ever-multiplying  claims  upon  its  sympathies, 
takes,  in  these  latter  times,  a  deal  of  moving. 
Not  even  Burke  risen  from  the  dead  could  hold 
its  undivided  attention  for  a  second  four  days' 
speech. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  day  of  the  solitary  and 
unaided  advocate  is  past.  Mankind  is  far  too 
busy  now  to  listen  for  more  than  the  briefest 
minute  to  any  individual  voice.  A  thousand  men 
toil  daily  to  collate  the  facts  and  arguments  upon 
which  it  passes  in  judgment  over  its  breakfast  cup. 
The  story  to  be  told  in  these  chapters  seeks  only 
its  proper  place  among  the  great  mass  of  accusa- 
tory records  that  truthful  observers  and  inquirers 
for  ten  years  back  have  been  piling  up  at  Russia's 

A 


2  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

door.     These  records  are  in  themselves  an  indict- 
ment— an  indictment   more  solemn,  more  sweep- 
ing, more  terrible  than  exists  in  written  language 
against  any  other  people.  /  Were  the  waning  nine- 
teenth  century  a  hundredfold  more    idle-minded 
and  indifferent  thanjthe_y^;^  de  siccle  cult  would 
have  it,  still  must  thisJiiidictiiient  compel  attention. 
My  own  share  in  the  gathering  of  materials  is 
represented  by  a  long   and    painstaking   journey 
through  Russia,  both  within  and  outside  the  Pale, 
for  the  most  part  under  the  guidance  of  practical 
men  who  were  able  to  ensure  to  me  the  minimum 
of  wasted  time.    The  tour  was  made  without  official 
assistance,  and,    I   am  happy  to   believe,   escaped 
official  notice.     This  fact   prevented    my  making 
personal  studies  of  the  Czar's  domesticity,  of  M. 
Pobiedonostseff's    piety,     of    General     Ignatieff's 
irbanity,  and  of  other  similarly  fascinating  features 
/of  polite  Russia,  concerning  which  so  much  has  been 
written.  \  The  Russia  I  saw  was  not  polite.    It  was  a 
Russia  whichJiad  never  done  anything  more  than 
[promise  sometime  to  get  civilised,  and  now  for  ten 
'ears  had  openly  surrendered  itself  to  the  engulf- 
ig  return  wave  of  barbarism.     It  was  a  Russia  of 
/dark  and  hopeless  ignorance,    of  drunken  incom- 
petency, of  frank  and  even  smiling  contempt  for 
.everything  of  thought  and  word  and  deed  that  we 
honesty.     I  saw  it   m    cottages,  in    fields,  in 
clfurches,^camps;    and   market-places — and  every- 
where, depressing  as  the^icture  was,  it  furnished 
tke  background  to  a  still  more  sinister  scene,  that 


''PARA    DOMOI!"  3 

of  a  whole  race  beino-  hunted  from  its  homes,  deA 
spoiled  of  its  possessions,  hounded  by  the  Cossack   j 
and  plundered  by  the  Ukinovnik,~^n(i  all  un pitied  / 
by  any  one.  ~^" 

To  attenipt  to  deal  in  any  satisfactory  way  with 
the  whole  question  of  the  Jewish  persecution  in 
Russia  is  like  setting-  out  to  write  an  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica.  The  subject  is  so  vast  that  its 
bulk  fairly  frightens  one.  To  tell  merely  what  is 
being  done — what  has  happened  since  March  of 
1891 — would  require  the  space  of  many  volumes, 
and  the  labour  of  as  many  men  as  there  are  scores 
of  towns,  villages,  and  hamlets  in  a  section  of 
country  stretching  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Black  Sea, 
and  containing  a  population  of  fifty  mUlioDs  of 
people.  The  most  industrious  gleaning  cannot  hope 
to  gather  the  thousandth  part  of  the  past  twelve 
months'  tragic  facts.  The  scope  of  the  figures 
staggers  the  imagination.  More  families,  for  ex- 
ample, have  been  affected  by  this  new  and  savage| 
enforcement  of  Ignatieff's  May  laws  and  the  added 
ukases  than  were  called  upon  to  mourn  the  loss  or 
wounding  of  relatives  on  either  side  during  the 
great  American  civil  war.  Yet  even  a  comparison 
of  this  kind  fails  to  convey  an  adequate  idea  of  the 
host  of  human  beings  involved  in  this  brutal  and 
wanton  persecution. 

How  much  more  difficult  must  seem  the  task, 
then,  of  striving  to  explain  this  strange  and  mon- 
strous excrescence  upon  the  history  of  our  century. 
To  comprehend  the  position  of  the  Jew  in  Russia 


4  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

one  must  study  the  Russian,  and  get  to  under- 
stand the  curious  quahties  and  absence  of  qualities 
which  make  him,  although  nominally  master,  in 
reality  the  intellectual  and  material  serf  of  all 
the  strangers  within  his  gates — Germans,  Jews, 
Tartars,  Finns,  Poles,  Armenians  alike.  One  must 
realise,  further,  that  in  this  present  barbaric 
attempt  of  the  Russian  to  drive  out  one  of  the 
groups  of  people  who  know  more  than  he  does, 
there  lies  both  the  whole  long  story  of  the  effort 
to  civilise  Russia,  and  the  final  admission  that 
the  effort  has  failed  and  is  abandoned.  Truly,  a 
complex  subject ! 

I  And  in  starting  upon  an  examination  of  this 
tangled  "and  far-reaching  web  of  race  hatreds, 
dynastic  ambitions,  and  religious  strifes,  it  cannot 
be  too  clearly  kept  in  mind  that  this  raid  upon 
f\\f^  Jpw<i— U  only  one  phase  of  a  vast  national 
movement.  All  things  conspired  to  point  to  the 
unhappy  Jew  as  the  one  to  begin  upon.  It  will  be 
the  turn  of  the  German  next.  Even  now  the  air 
is  filled  with  ugly  suggestions  as  to  the  confisca- 
tion of  German  factories  and  industrial  plants,  and 
new  laws  are  actually  coming  into  force  which  will 
compel  foreigners  to  choose  between  naturalisa- 
tion and  flight.  The  Finns  are  already  under 
the  harrow.  The  fact  that  their  autonomy  was 
sacredly  pledged  to  them  under  the  Grand  Ducal 
Crown  never  mattered  for  a  moment.  The  pledge 
was  simply  broken — snapped  over  the  Imperial 
knee  like  a  dry  twig.     A  hundred   solemn  pro- 


"  PARA   DOMOI  :  "  5 

'mises,  to  which  had  been  given  the  weight  of 
Ministerial  seals  and  Imperial  signatures,  were  as 
calmly  tossed  on  the  dust-heap  when  it  was 
desired  to  drive  the  Jews  from  Moscow.  Good 
faith  has  no  meaning  in  Russia.  No  assurance,  no 
pledge,  no  law  will  avail  for  an  instant  to  save  the 
German  and  English  properties  in  Russia,  once 
■the  Ministerial  hand  is  lifted  to  seize  them. 

Upon  the  banners  of  the  advance  guard  in  this 
prodigious  national  movement  might  well  be  in- 
scribed Aksakoff's  famous  words,  ''Para  domoi!''' 
{"  It  is  time  to  go  home").  The  phrase  at  the 
moment  thrilled  Moscow  with  new  Pan-Slavic 
raptures.  It  has  come  to  be,  if  not  the  spoken 
watchword,  at  least  the  tacit  motto  of  rank  and 
file  as  well  as  leaders. 

We  talk  glibly  enough  of  Pan-Slavism,  but 
rarely  define  it,  even  to  our  own  minds.  To 
most  persons  it  signifies  in  a  vague  way  some- 
thing about  grabbing  Bulgaria  and  Roumelia  when- 
ever the  next  war  with  Turkey  comes,  and 
meanv/hile  subsidising  spies  and  agitators  in  the 
Balkans.  In  reality  Pan-Slavism  signifies  some- 
thing incalculably  broader  and  more  important  to 
the  rest  of  the  world.  A  big  book  could  be 
written — nay,  the  next  generation  will  have  many 
big  books  written — upon  its  meaning.  V/hen 
Aksakoff  called  out  ''Para  doinoiV  every  Rus- 
sian knew  him  to  mean  that  it  was  time  to  give 
over  the  pretence  of  apeing  Western  Europe ; 
that  it  was  time  to  throw  to  the  winds  the  effort 


6  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

to  appear  civilised ;  that  it  was  time  to  turn  the 
clock  back  again  to  the  starting-point  of  Peter  the 
Great,  to  undo  all  that  his  German  successors  had 
done  in  imitation  of  Occidental  models,  to  frankly 
relapse  into  Slavonic  barbarism. 

One  must  go  to  Moscow  to  comprehend  the 
streno^th  of  this  feelingr  and  the  tremendous  fasci- 
nation  it  has  for  the  Russian  mind.  A  dozen  years 
igo  it  seemed  to  be  the  exclusive  property  of  a 
>mall  though  influential  group  of  reactionary 
thinkers — the  Aksakoffs,  Katkoff,  Ignatieff,  and 
)thers  less  well  known  to  European  fame.  To- 
'day  it  literally  possesses  the  nation.  Those  of 
the  educated  Russian  classes  who  are  too  intelli- 
gent to  be  really  moved  by  it,  are  precisely  the 
ones  w^ho  most  vigorously  simulate  being  under 
its  sway.  The  feeling  is  quite  akin  to  that  of  the 
child  who,  having  laboriously  sat  out  the  long 
hours  of  a  church  service  in  tight  boots  and  a  stiff 
shirt  collar,  returns  home  to  tear  off  these  hateful 
bonds  and  roll  barefooted  and  collarless  in  the 
hay.  (_The  Russian  is  captivated  with  the  thought 
of  ceasing  to  pretend  to  be  civilised.  His  is  the 
longing"  of  the  young'  Indian  brave  at  the  mission- 
school_to^et  back  again  into  the  breech-clout — to 
exchange  the  school-desk  and  books  for  forest 
oflades  and  the  chase. 

We  of  the  outside  world  have  no  notion  w^hat- 
ever  of  the  lengths  to  which  this  reaction  has 
already  gone  in  matters  affecting  not  merely  the 
Jewish  population,  but  the  whole  social  structure 


"PARA    DOMOI!"  7 

of  Russia.  Few,  for  example,  realise  that  on 
July  I  of  last  year  corporal jDunishment  was  re- 
established in  Russia.  The  horrors  of  the  knout 
used  to  be  dilated  upon  in  every  book  about 
Russia.  No  collection  of  instruments  of  torture  is 
complete  without  one  of  those  terrible  bunches  of 
leathern  thongs,  their  ends  knotted  in  balls  of  lead, 
and  curious  visitors  look  at  them  with  as  much 
sense  of  strangeness  as  if  they  came  from  the 
Papal  Palace  at  Avignon  or  the  old  Binnenhof  in 
The  Hague.  It  is  indeed  only  thirty  years  ago 
since  it  disappeared  in  Russia,  when  the  Liberator 
Czar  remodelled  the  judicial  system  of  his  country. 
It  is  perhaps  too  much  to  say  that  the  knout  has 
come  back.  Such  beatings  as  I  have  heard  of 
have  been  with  rods.  From  this  to  the  knout  is 
but  a  short  backward  step.  If  the  latter  is  itself 
restored,  it  will  appear  in  company  with  so  many 
other  savage  revivals  of  pre-liberation  days  that 
its  return  will  be  scarcely  noted. 

In  the  same  way  the  old  landlord  magistrate 
has  come  into  existence  again.  After  the  serfs 
had  been  emancipated  it  became  "necessary  to 
provide  decent  legal  machinery  for  the  trying  of 
minor  cases.  Up  to  that  time  the  "owners  of 
souls  "  had  dealt  with  petty  offences  and  disputes 
after  their  own  sweet  will,  punishing,  fining, 
maiming,  killing,  quite  as  they  pleased,  and  with 
only  the  barest  forms  of  law.  Alexander  II,  in 
September  of  1862,  eighteen  months  after  the 
emancipation,   established  by  decree  a  system  of 


8  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

minor  jurisdiction,  presided  over  in  each  district 
by  a  justice  of  the  peace  [Mirovoi  Siidya),  who 
passed  upon  all  cases  involving  not  more  than  500 
roubles  (6330),  and  who,  in  criminal  cases,  was 
bound  by  an  explicit  criminal  code.  /-Alexander 
IIjj  on  July  I  of  last  year,  1891,  abolished  all  the 
justices  of  peace  outside  St.  Petersburg,  Moscow, 
and  a  few  other  large  cities,  and  returned  to  the 
old  system  of  Nicholas.  Instead  of  the  justice  of 
the  peace,  there  is  now  a  Natchalnik  of  the 
ZerfTstvo — that  is  to  say,  a  landlord  who  has  time 
and  needs  the  place,  and  who  is  elected  by  the 
landed  gentry  of  the  district.  This  is  the  gentle- 
man~who,  during  this  last  awful  winter  of  famine 
and  pestilence,  has  so  ably  muddled  or  obstructed 
the  efforts  of  the  central  authorities  and  the  Red 
Cross  Society  toward  popular  relief.  Of  only  one 
or  two  of  these  N^atcJialniks  has  any  good  word 
been  spoken  by  those  who  have  been  studying  the 
famine  districts.  More  often  they  are  alluded  to 
as  rough  despots  or  hopelessly  stupid  fools. 
Occasionally  we  hear  of  one  like  M.  Dementieff, 
Natchalnik  in  Samara,  who  late  last  autumn  got 
together  300,000  roubles  on  the  pretext  of  reliev- 
ing the  suffering  in  his  district,  and  coolly  left  the 
country  with  the  entire  sum.  It  is  to  these 
officials  that  the  power  of  ordering  corporal 
punishment  at  will  has  been  restored. 

This  is  only  one  of  scores  of  similar  revivals, 
iQwIng~on  every  side  the  governing  desire  to  get 
Russia  back_again  into  her  Asiatic  shell. 


"PARA    DOMOi:"'  9 

The  signs  of  this  reaction  force  themselves  upon 
the  attention  at  every  corner  in  inner  Russia. 
Gentlemen  and  officers  who  fifteen  years  ago 
affected  rationalism  in  religion,  and  left  the 
demonstrative  part  of  the  Church  ceremonial  to 
the  monks  and  the  moujiks,  now  ostentatiously 
halt  before  every  shrine  and  church  edifice  to  bow 
and  cross  themselves.  The  pilgrimages  to  holy 
places  have  swollen  enormously  in  volume,  and 
embrace  now  a  well-to-do  element  which  under 
the  last  reign  they  never  knew.  If  this  were 
accompanied  by  any  spiritual  awakening  inside 
the  Church,  or  even  an  increased  activity  in  theo- 
logical discussion,  it  would  invite  more  respectful 
comment.  /_Butjiothing  is  more  certain  than  that 
there  has  been^no  spiritual  or  other  awakening^ 
The  Russian  Orthodox  Church — of  which  some-\ 
thing  will  be  saiH  later  on — is  spiritually  and  1 
mentally  as  dry  aiT3~l3arren  as  a  sandbank.  Itl 
exists  solely  in  forms  and  ceremonies  for  the  in-/ 
telligent,  and  in  fetiches  forthe  unintelligent. 
This  augmented  observance  of  the  ceremonies, 
everywhere  noted  by  on-lookers,  indicates  merely 
a  general  consciousness  that  th£_Church  is  playing 
a  part  in  this  grand  national  retrograde  movement. 

Another  indication,  perhaps  even  more  signifi- 
cant, is  found  in  the  immense  proportional  increase 
of  books  printed  in  the  Russian  language.  Book- 
sellers who  formerly  kept  a  few  Russian  works, 
and  devoted  most  of  their  shelf  space  to  French, 
German,  and  even  English  literature,  now  see  the 


lo  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

conditions  quite  reversed.  The  new  Russian 
'generation  is  far  less  inclined  to  reading  of  any 
sort  than  was  that  which  flourished  under  the 
Liberator  Czar,  and  is  also  far  less  well  educated,  in 
^he  better  sense  of  the  word.  Scholars,  students 
and  booksellers,  with  whom  I  talked  in  a  half- 
dozen  widely  separated  large  towns,  all  told  the 
same  tale  :  the  demand  for  serious  works  was 
yearly  diminishing,  and  the  younger  Russians  were 
not  learninof  lanoruasfes  as  their  lathers  did.  /  The 
principal  display  in  every  window  and  on  every 
counter  is  of  pamphlet  translations  from  Zola, 
Belot,  Richepin,  Gaboriau,  and  other  modern 
French  novelists.  Next  to  these  in  importance 
come  imported  editions  of  these  same  books  in 
their^ original  French.  The  literature  of  strictly 
native  production  seems  to  be  almost  wholly  con- 
fined to  pamphlets.*  ,  No  one  talks  of  a  visible 
successor  to  Turgenieff,  Dostoieffsky  or  Tolstoi. 
Even  in  the  army  curious  effects  of  this  ruling 

/  *  A  critic,  writing  to  the  New  \'ork  Nation  under  date  of 
October  3,  1891,  took  exception  to  my  earlier  statements  upon  this 
subject,  and  quoted  the  St.  Petersburg  Ktiizhny  V"icstnik  (a 
publishers'  organ)  to  show  that  of  the  4358  works  published  in 
Russia  during  1890  only  10  per  cent,  were  translations.  One  may 
prove  anything  under  the  sun  by  Russian  statistics.  I  sent  copies 
of  this  criticism  to  student  friends  in  both  St.  Petersburg  and  Kieft". 
The  replies  were  that  1  was  absolutely  right  ;  that  the  vast  majority 
of  the  books  on  philology  (455),  medical  science  (372),  political 
science  337;,  &c.  »S;c.,  were  either  text-books  or  obscure  pamphlets ; 
and  that  M.  Struve,  the  Russian  Minister  at  Washington,  had 
publicly  described  the  intellectual  and  literary  decadence  of  Russia 
in  terms  much  more  sweeping  than  mine. 


•'PARA    DOMOi:"  II 

idea  that  "  it  is  time  to  go  home  "  are  observable. 
The  soldiers  —  stout,  deep-chested,  docile,  and 
hardy-looking  fellows — are  fast  getting  out  of  the 
stiff,  pipe-cla};,  routine  which  the  other  Czars,  in 
their  passion  for  imitating  the  German  model, 
insisted^Si^  If  there  were  any  geniuses  among 
the  military  leaders  of  Russia,  they  would  doubt- 
less have  invented  before  this  a  series  of  original 
Asiatic  formations  to  answer  as  substitutes  for  the 
corps,  division,  regiment,  and  squadron  borrowed 
from  the  hated  Teuton.  Unhappily,  this  flight  is 
beyond  their  intellectual  level.  They  must  still 
have  a  Guards  Corps  in  St.  Petersburg  as  in  Berlin, 
and  use  a  German  manual  of  arms.  But  both 
officers  and  soldiers  are  already  a  long  distance 
away  from  the  standard  of  discipline  that  was  en- 
forced a  dozen  years  ago.  The  officers  in  their 
uniforms  do  not  scruple  to  pay  open  court  to  the 
cocottes  in  the  public  gardens  of  St.  Petersburg, 
Moscow,  and  Kieff.  They  sit  with  them  at  the 
supper  tables  in  the  open  air,  buy  wine  for  them, 
quarrel  with  one  another  for  the  privilege  of  their 
society,  and  drive  away  in  droschkis  with  them, 
all  without  the  slightest  thought  of  concealment 
— and  all  in  full  uniform  !  The  private  soldiers 
no  longer  try  to  stand  erect  or  carry  them- 
selves like  warriors.  Thev  slouch  alonof  at  an 
easy,  round-shouldered  gait,  hands  in  pockets, 
and  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  taste  and  convenience 
whether  they  salute  a  passing  officer  or  not.  Only  a 
few  months  ago  the  case  was  reported  of  a  young 


12  THE   NEW    EXODDS 

Russian  officer  who  drew  his  revolver  and  shot 
dead  a  private  soldier  who  failed  to  salute  him. 

A  sympathetic  Russian  explained  to  me  this 
laxity  of  discipline  which  I  noted  on  every  side 
among  the  soldiers  by  saying  that  formerly  they 
were  drilled  a  great  deal  in  all  sorts  of  precise, 
Iry-as-dust  German  formalities,  but  this  did  not 
suit  the  spirit  of  the  Slav,  and  so  now  that  was  all 
abandoned  and  reliance  was  placed  solely  on 
loral  discipline." 

lius,  evidences  of  the  reaction  might  be  mul- 
tiplied and  extended  into  practically  every  de- 
partment of  Russian  existence.  But  the  sequel 
w^l  of  necessity  deal  with  this  subject  in  detail. 

/The  essential  point  is  that  the  overwhelming 
niass___of_ Russians,  educated,  half-educated,  and 
ia'nQraDt  alike,  are  for  the  moment  enlisted  under 
tH^  baniier  of  reaction.  If  there  are  dissenters, 
they  hold  their  peace,  sneering  in  private,  but 
openly  throwing  up  their  caps  for  the  march  back- 
ward. All  those  who  have  the  intelligence  to  see 
what  folly  it  is,  joined  with  the  courage  to  speak 
their  minds,  are  in  Siberia  or  in  exile.  So  far  as 
j^blic  opinion  is  visible  in  Russia,  it  is  unanimous, 
everybody  professes  to  be  in  favour  of  Russia  for 
le  Russians,  and  to  be  quite  satisfied  with  the 
nieasures^adopted  and  foreshadowed  to  make  that 
policy  good. 

\his  absence  of  criticism  is  a  fatal  bar  to  any 
general  awakening  on  the  subject.  The  value  of 
any  set  of  ideas,   if  they  are  persistently  promul- 


"PARA    DOMOI!'  13 

gated  and  may  not  be  debated,  will  naturally 
establish  itself  in  the  public  mind — all  the  more  if 
that  public  mind  is  inherently  indolent  and  limited. 
Thus,  Moscow  and  inner  Russia  generally  has 
come  to  believe  that  the  Western  civilisation — the 
civilisation  of  Germany,  France,  England,  and 
America — is  absolutely  corrupt  and  diseased,  and 
must,  from  its  own  rottenness,  very  soon  break 
down  altogether.  They  ascribe  to  it  nameless 
abominations,  of  which  Western  Europe  has  hardly 
so  much  as  an  abstract  idea.  And  their  editors 
and  spokesmen  profess  continually  the  conviction 
that,  when  these  wretched  and  effete  nations  of 
the  West  shall  have  collapsed  and  perished  in  their 
own  putridity,  the  pure  and  untarnished  Slavonic 
race  will  inherit  and  regenerate  the  earth.  The 
wildest  of  these  frantic  teachings  takes  root  some- 
where. The  broad  notion  at  the  back  of  them — that 
the  Russian  race  can  do  o^reat  and  wonderful  thinofs 
by  itself,  that  it  has  not  thus  far  done  them  because 
its  energies  have  been  directed  in  mistaken 
channels,  and  that  it  is  high  time  now  to  turn  back 
and  begin  again  a  la  Slav  naturel — has  taken 
possession  of  the  popular  mind. 

Of  course  this  popular  mind  is  a  very  childish 
affair.  Indeed,  the  temptation  continually  arises 
to  find  parallels  for  all  things  Russian  in  the 
fantasies  and  queer  aberrations  of  childhood.  L  The 
Slavic^J^ain  is  nothing  if  not  Jiryfiiiile:^  It  is 
invincibly  optimistic";  it  uisheTlieadlong  into  en- 
thusiastic  beliefs  founded  upon  the  merest  hearsay 


/ 


14  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

or  imagining  ;  it  invents  lies  and  excuses  with  in- 
cre^iSle^wiftness  and  an  entire  disregard  for  pro- 
babilities, or  for  cause  and  effect ;  it  has  no  con- 
ception of  responsibility,  of  duty,  or  any  other 
abstract  virtue.  Withal,  it  is  kindly  and  ferocious 
'byTiirn,  cowardly  in  the  face  of  stern  power, 
merry  when  the  sun  shines,  lazy  as  the  day  is 
long — childlike  always. 

The  bold  shamelessness  of  Russian  official  lying 
has  long  since  passed  into  a  proverb,  yet  it  remains 
still  so  difficult  a  thing  for  the  Western  mind  to 
lay  hold  of,  that  able  travellers  are  to  this  day 
deceived  on  every  side.  Within  the  past  five 
years  books  have  been  published  by  English  and 
other  travellers,  professing  to  tell  "  the  truth  about 
Russia  "  which  were  literally  padded  from  first  to 
last  with  Muscovite  falsehoods.  Only  last  summer, 
for  example,  Mr.  Arnold  White,  who  had  been 
journeying  through  ""the  Empire  to  secure  confi- 
dential information  for  Baron  Hirsch,  returned 
and  gravely  reported  for  facts  about  Moscow  a 
r/ack  of  lies  which  had  been  told  him  by  the 
Officials  of  the  Holy  Synod,  the  falsity  of  which 
was  demonstrated  on  the  first  moment  of  inquiry. 
He  was  told,  to  take  only  one  incident,  that  the 
cruelties  perpetrated  in  driving  the  Jews  from 
Moscow  in  March  of  1891  were  due  to  the  mis- 
taken and  excessive  zeal  of  "  a  late  Chief  of 
Police,"  and  he  repeated  this  for  truth  in  his 
report.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  was  no  "  late  " 
Chief  of  Police  at  all.     Yourkoffskv,  the  Cossack 


"PARA    DOMOI!"  15 

adventurer,  who  did  these  cruel  deeds,  had  been 
Chief  of  Police  in  Moscow  for  six  years,  and  was 
Chief  of  Police  still.  Only  a  child  or  a  Russian 
officer  would  venture  upon  such  a  lie  as  this. 

This  infantile  quality  has  its  fullest  exemplifica- 
tion in  the  confidence  with  which  the  Russian 
regards  the  commercial  future  of  his  country,  once 
all  the  people  who  know  how  to  conduct  commerce 
have  been  chased  from  it.  (Oyer  and  over  again, 
in  the  official  literature  of  the^Persecution,  one 
finds  it  set  forth  with  the  utmost  naivete  that  Jews 
and  other  foreigners  were  necessary  in  Russia  to 
open  up  avenues  of  trade  and  establish  industries, 
but  now  that  they  have  done  this  they  can  safely 
be  driven  out.  X  The  Russian  admits  frankly  that 
he  was  not  mtellectually  equal  to  the  task  of 
establishing  such  industrial  commerce  as  Russia 
enjoys,  but  he  never  dreams  of  doubting  his 
ability  to  carry  it  on  now  that  it  has  been  estab- 
lished. Much  less  does  it  occur  to  him  to  question 
his  moral  right  to  kick  out  and  despise  all  those 
who  established  it. 

Thus  we  return  to  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews. 
Undoubtedly  they  owe  it  to  their  nationality  that 
they  are  the  first  to  feel  the  effects  of  the  Pan- 
Slavic  upheaval — but  they  are  being  put  out  / 
because  they  are  not  Russians,  not  because  th^ 
are  Jews.  The  expulsion  of  the  other  non^ 
Russians  will  follow — nay,  is  already  in  progress/ 

It  was  natural  to  begin  with  the  Jews.  In 
every    imperfectly    civilised     country — and     un- 


1 6  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

flbrtunately  in  at  least  one  country  which  regards 
iV^elf  as  very  completely  civilised — the  materials 
\  for  an  anti-Jewish  movement  always  lie  close  at 
"'  hand,  TiT  Russia  this  unhappy  people  had  from 
the  first  lived  under  extraordinary  conditions.  A 
whole  thick  volume  of  laws  existed,  all  designed 
to  keep  it  a  race  apart.  Every  moujik  knew  that 
the  Jew  was  a  pariah,  a  creature  who  in  official 
eyes  had  fewer  rights  than  himself,  or  even  than 
the  despised  gipsy.  When  an  ignorant  man  low 
down  in  the  social  scale  finds  somebody  lower 
still,  mere  contact  breeds  a  lust  for  persecution. 
Somewhat  higher  up  on  the  ladder,  the  small 
Russian  merchant,  artisan,  and  trader  had  the 
additional  grievance  of  disastrous  competition  with 
the  Jew,  who  could  actually  add  up  figures  in  his 
head  without  an  abacus,  who  never  drank,  rarely 
took  holidays,  understood  how  to  buy,  and  could 
not  be  dismayed  by  hard  work.  Still  higher  up, 
the  Russian  professional  and  larger  commercial 
circles  had  this  feeling  in  a  form  intensified  by  the 
greater  magnitude  of  the  competition. 

In_one^  sense,  the  religious  antagonism  was  a 
l^ss  potent  factor  in  Russia  than  in  Germany  or 
Hungary.  The  Russian  of  the  last  reign  was 
t^a  lackadaisical  theologian,  and  took  only  less 
in_teresTin  the  creeds  of  those  about  him  than  he 
did_  in  his  own  dogmas.  But  with  the  sombre 
and_^inister  revival  of  ecclesiastical  energy  which 
followed  the  rise  to  power  of  Pobiedonostseff,  the 
Orthodox   Church  was  able   to  add  the  spirit  of 


"PARA    DOMOI  !"  17 

religious  intolerance  to  thecommercial,  social  and 
racial  elements  which,  under  the  new  reign, 
threatened  Jewish  security  and  peace. 

Hence,  when  a  wretched  personal  intrigue,  to 
be  detailed  later  on,  put  into  certain  base  minds 
the  idea  of  a  J iid^jih^iri^c  in  Russia,  it  was  an  easy 
matter  to  secure  anti- Jewish  riots.  And  later, 
when  the  Pan-Slavic  vision  had  expanded  into  a 
demand  for  the  expulsion  of  foreigners  in  general, 
what  more  natural  than  that  the  crusade  should 
start  with  the  Jews  ? 

The  Russians  are  the  excuse-makers  of  the 
world.  The  police  had  scarcely  begun  their  work 
of  expelling  Jews  who  were  too  poor  to  buy 
temporary  immunity  before  all  Russia  blossomed 
with  reasons  for  the  expulsion.  LTheJews  were 
all  usurers,  money-lenders,  vampire§_jidiQ  sucked 
the  choicest  Russian  blood,  promoters  of  dis- 
honesty in  business,  &c.  These  charges  began 
in  the  imagination,  but  it  was  not  long  before  the 
Russians  had  persuaded  themselves  of  their  truth. 
Every  bankrupt  Russian  merchant,  who~lTas  mis- 
conducted his  business  with  drunken  stupidity  and 
indolence  for  years,  will  tell  you  now  that  he  has 
been  ruined  by  Jewish  chicanery ;  every  bad 
Russian  workman,  who  never  properly  learned  his 
trade,  and  has  lost  every  job  he  ever  had  through 
drink,  ascribes  his  lack  of  work  to  Jewish  com- 
petition ;  every  moujik,  who  is  too  lazy  properly 
to  cultivate  his  field,  and  whose  labour  is  mort- 
gaged ahead  for  two  or  three  years  to  the  local 

B 


i8  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

publican,  while  his  children  have  neither  clothes 
nor  food,  feels  convinced  that  his  misfortunes  are 
all  in  some  way  due  to  the  Jew. 

More  than  that,  the  Russian  Jew  labours  under 
the  disadvantage  of  the  fact  that  the  large  majority 
of  Enorlish,  German  and  other  foreis^n  merchants 
and  manufacturers  in  Russia  take  the  side  of  the 
Russians  asfainst  him.  This  is  not  difficult  of 
explanation.  All  commerce  in  Russia — all  finan- 
cial activity  of  whatever  kind — is  in  the  nature  of 
a  game,  in  which  all  the  people  who  are  not 
Russians — Jews,  Germans,  English,  Armenians, 
Greeks,  and  Tartars — play  for  the  possessions  of 
the  Russian,  he  himself  not  being  smart  enough  to 
take  a  place  among  the  gamesters.  In  this  game 
the  competitors  do  not  like  one  another,  but  race 
prejudice  enables  the  others  to  more  or  less  unite 
in  a  common  dislike  for  the  Jew. 

What  the  actual  facts  are  concerning  the  Jew  in 
Russia,  I  hope  to  be  able  to  state  with  some 
degree  of  conclusiveness  later  on.  It  is  enough 
here  to  say  that,  whatever  his  faults,  they  are  not 
those  with  which  the  present  popular  clamour  in 
Russia  charges  him. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE    PARIAH    COMMUNITY 

Properly  to  follow  what  has  happened  and  is 
happening  in  Russia,  not  to  speak  of  the  still  more 
impressive  events  to  come,  one  must  first  of  all 
realise  that  all  over  the  empire  the  administrative 
power  is  above  the  law.  It  is  by  the  failure  to 
comprehend  this  that  men  even  of  Mr.  Goldwin 
Smith's  intellectual  rank  are  led  to  write  and  print 
misleading  and  mischievous  nonsense  about  Russo- 
Jewish  matters. 

In  Anglo-Saxon  countries,  when  we  speak  of  a 
law-abiding  community,  we  mean  that  the  people 
therein  obey  the  laws  and  give  the  officials 
appointed  to  administer  the  law  a  minimum  of 
trouble.  There  is  no  equivalent  phrase  in  Russian, 
and  there  is  no  need  for  one.  That  the  people 
obey  is  taken  for  granted.  It  is  the  officials  who 
do  not  observe  the  laws,  but  who  instead  use 
the  vast  and  conflicting  jumble  of  ukases,  decrees, 
and  Ministerial  instructions  as  a  general  basis  for 
doing  whatever  they  want  to  do.  There  is  no 
study  or  science  of  jurisprudence  in  our  sense  of 
the  word.  If  a  Governor-General  sees  that  the 
drift  of  Imperial  or  Ministerial  inclination  is  in  a 


20  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

certain  direction,  his  underlings  and  all  the  small 
officials  who  serve  the  courts  and  police  offices  of 
the  province  make  a  search  and  find  a  thousand 
and  one  smart  ways  of  interpreting  what  is  called 
the  law  to  suit  His  Excellency's  purpose,  which, 
of  course,  is  to  keep  abreast  of  the  St.  Peters- 
burg current.  If  this  current  is  suddenly  arrested^ 
if  it  backs,  shifts,  flows  off  at  a  tangent,  the  law  as 
promptly  assumes  a  wholly  different  complexion. 

Moreover,  if  warrant  for  any  given  line  of  action 
which  seems  desirable  to  the  local  officials  is  not 
to  be  found  at  all  in  the  law,  the  fact  does  not 
deter  them  for  a  minute.  They  go  ahead  without 
it,  confident  that  there  will  be  no  one  to  bring 
them  to  book,  and  ,that,  even  if  there  were,  they 
can  rely  upon  Ministerial  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  their  excessive  zeal  was  well-intentioned. 

I  am  not  writing  at  random  in  this  or  exaggera- 
ting anything.  If  it  were  necessary,  I  could  fill  a 
chapter  of  this  book  with  quotations  of  perfectly 
authenticated  cases  in  my  notes  of  administrative 
actions  which  had  no  earthly  excuse  in  law. 
What  law,  for  example,  authorised  M.  Alexeieff, 
Mayor  of  Moscow,  during  the  summer  of  1891  to 
order  that  no  more  sick  Jews  should  be  admitted 
to  the  hospitals  of  Moscow  ?  This  is  only  one  of 
scores  of  such  incidents,  some  of  which  it  will  be 
useful  to  cite  further  on.  And  as  for  grotesquely- 
strained  constructions  of  the  law,  now  stretched 
one  way  to  form  a  pitfall,  now  wrenched  the  other 
way  to  clutch  and  fleece  the  victim,  they  form  a 


THE    PARIAH    COMMUNITY  21 

leading  feature  of  the  whole  story  of  the  persecu- 
tion. 

For  this  reason,  less  importance  attaches  to  the 
formidable  list  of  anti-Jewish  laws  which  exist  in 
Russia  than  might  be  supposed.  Three  years  ago 
a  compilation  of  them  was  published  at  Kieff  which 
•covers  290  octavo  pages  of  close  type,  and  of  these 
laws  nineteen-twentieths  have  never  been  trans- 
lated out  of  the  original  Russian.  Since  that  book 
was  printed  there  have  been  enough  additional 
ukases,  notes,  and  rescripts  on  the  subject  half  to 
fill  another  such  volume.  It  would  be  an  incredi- 
bly dull  official  who  in  all  this  huge  repository 
of  contradictory  laws  and  interpretations  could 
not  find  new  ways  of  commending  himself  to 
M.  Pobiedonostseff 

Four  years  ago  a  commission  was  appointed  to 
codify  the  existing  laws  and  suggest  new  ones 
governing  the  residential  privileges  of  Jews  within 
the  empire,  and  their  rights  of  holding  property 
and  engaging  in  business.  This  commission,  in 
the  spring  of  1891,  made  a  report,  which  all  Rus- 
sian Jews  know  of  by  hearsay  and  refer  to  as 
"the  sixty-five  projects."  This  report  was  drawn 
up  by  M.  de  Ploeve,  the  chief  assistant  in  the 
Ministry  of  the  Interior,  and  the  chosen  penman 
of  the  persecution.  It  is  said  that  the  majority  of 
the  commission  made  a  different  kind  of  report, 
recommending  more  tolerant  measures,  and  that 
the  Czar  refused  to  receive  this  and  took  M.  de 
Ploeve's  stringent  suggestions  instead.      It  is  also 


22  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

alleged  that  none  of  the  Ministers  save  M. 
Dournovo,  who  is  M.  de  Ploeve's  nominal  superior, 
originally  favoured  the  adoption  of  this  minority 
report. 

However  that  maybe,  the  "  sixty-five  projects" 
were  hanging  like  a  nightmare  over  Israel  last 
summer  and  autumn,  while  I  was  in  Russia.  It 
was  understood  that  nothing  more  was  needed  to 
make  them  laws  save  a  formal  act  of  ratification 
by  the  Council  of  the  Empire,  and  the  announce- 
ment of  this  was  looked  for  from  week  to  week. 
Copies  of  these  "  projects,"  surreptitiously  obtained, 
began  to  circulate  through  the  Empire,  from  one 
ofificial  to  another.  A  devoted  man,  at  great  risk 
to  himself,  was  able  to  procure  for  me  one  of  these 
written  copies,  and  smuggle  it  out  of  the  country 
to  me  where  I  waited  for  it  on  the  Hungarian 
border.  When  the  task  of  getting  it  translated, 
and  of  comparing  it  section  by  section  with  exist- 
ing laws  as  far  as  they  are  obtainable  in  any 
language  but  Russian,  had  been  completed,  I  found 
that  the  mysterious  "  projects  "  were  really  little 
more  than  a  restatement  of  previous  regulations. 
What  is  new  in  them  considerably  limits  Jewish 
privileges,  and  elaborates  the  machinery  for  harry- 
ing them  from  country  to  town  once  they  have 
been  driven  inside  the  Pale.  They  also  provide 
punishments  for  even  unwitting  offenders  not  pre- 
viously authorised  by  the  law.  But  to  my  know- 
ledofc  thini^s  have  been  done  all  over  Russia  for 
which  not  even  these  new  projects  afford  a  warrant. 


THE    PARIAH    COMMUNITV  23 

although,  Hke  all  Imperially-approved  "projects," 
they  have  been  practically  in  force  ever  since  the 
first  high  officials  were  able  to  find  out  about  them. 

These  "projects"  remain  to  this  day  unratified. 
This  fact  may  be  due  to  the  Ministerial  dissensions 
of  which  so  much  has  been  heard  during  the  past 
winter  —  dissensions  which,  together  with  the 
general  disorganisation  incident  to  the  famine, 
and  the  collapse  of  the  Imperial  Exchequer, 
seem  to  have  paralysed  governmental  action  in 
many  other  directions.  But  even  if  affairs  in 
Russia  had  pursued  their  normal  course,  it  is  quite 
likely  that  the  "  projects  "  would  still  have  remained 
in  a  pigeon-hole. 

It  had  been  taken  for  granted  that  the  extreme 
severities  of  the  past  autumn  and  winter  were  based 
upon  these  mysterious  "  projects,"  of  which  so  much 
was  heard  and  so  little  known.  I  find  now  that 
this,  with  the  exceptions  noted  above,  is  not  the 
case.  All  this  only  enforces  what  was  said  at  the 
outset — there  is  no  need  for  laws  in  order  to 
enable  the  placemen  of  the  autocracy  to  harass,  per- 
secute, despoil,  and  expel  the  unhappy  Russian 
Jew.  The  leash  has  been  slipped.  The  whole 
official  pack,  from  Governors-General  down  to  the 
poorest  Cossack,  are  in  full  cry  at  his  heels. 

To  rehearse  a  few  elementary  facts  :  What  is 
known  in  Russia  as  the  Pale  consists  of  fifteen 
Governments,  or  Gjtbernia.  This  territor)^  where 
Jews  are  allowed  to  live  and  into  which  they  are 
being  chased  from  all  other  parts  of  Russia,  was 


24  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

all  stolen  by  the  Russians  from  other  people. 
What  is  called  Little  ^Russia — the  gubernia  of 
Tchernigov,  Poltava,  and  Ekaterinoslav  —  was 
conquered  from  Poland  in  1670.  The  ^Crimea, 
or  government  of  Taurida,  \vas~  taken  from  the 
Turks^  in  the  following  century.  White  Russia — 
that  is,  the  governments  of  Vitebsk  and  Mohilef 
— came  in  from  Poland  on  the  first  partition  in 
1772.  The  later  partitions  brought  in  at  vary- 
ing times  the  Polish  governments  of  Kovno, 
Wilna,  Grodno,  Minsk,  Kieff,  Podolia,  and  Vol- 
hynia,  while  the  further  dilapidation  of  Turkey 
yielded  Kherson  and  Bessarabia.  These  fifteen 
p-overnments  are  the  Pale.  Thev  stretch  from 
within  a  few  miles  of  the  Baltic  Sea,  southward 
to  the  Euxine,  and  eastward  to  the  land  of  the 
Don  Cossacks. 

/'This  territory  was  supposed  in  1879  to  contain 
iabout  25,500,000  inhabitants,  of  whom  3,000,000 
were  Jews.  I  say  "  supposed,"  because  Russian 
statistics  are  wildly  inaccurate,  and  are  confessedly 
made  up  from  tax  lists,  village  registers,  estimates 
of  neighbours,  and  everything  except  actual 
counting.  No  better  means  exist  now  upon  which 
to  base  a  speculation  as  to  the  entire  number  of 
/fews  in  Russia.  The  number  is  placed  all  the 
^way  from  4,000,000  to  10,000,000.  Probably  the 
estimate  of  Paul  Dimidoff,  whose  pamphlet*  is  of 
great  value  on  the  whole  Russo-Jewish  question, 

*  "  Juden-Elend  im  Lande  der  Romanows,"  geschildert  von  Paul 
Uimidow.    Berlin.    1890. 


THE    PARIAH    COxMMUNlTY  25 

giving  them  a  total  of  6,000,000,  is  most  nearly 
correct.  The  Jewish  rate  of  increase  is  almost  as 
abnormally  large  as  that  of  the  French  Canadians 
in  Quebec.  Hence,  we  may  say,  roughly,  thai 
thirteen  years  ago  there  were  5,000,000  Jews  in 
Russia,  of  whom  3,000,000  lived  in  the  Pala 
something  more  than  1,000,000  in  Poland,  and 
something  less  than  1,000,000  in  Russia  proper. 

These  Jews  in  the  Pale  constituted  nearly  or 
quite  1 2  per  cent,  of  the  entire  population  of  the 
Pale.  Of  the  urban  population  they  constituted 
vastly  greater  proportion.  In  the  towns  and  town- 
ships of  Mohilef,  for  example,  they  were  94  per 
cent,  of  all  the  people  ;  in  those  of  Volhynia,  7 1 
per  cent. ;  Minsk,  69  per  cent.  ;  Kovno,  68  per 
cent.,  and  so  on  down  to  15  per  cent,  in  the  towns 
of  Ekaterinoslav.*  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  they 
were  already  congested  in  the  towns.  In  fact, 
their  enforced  residence  in  these  fifteen  districts 
made  the  Pale  distinctively  a  place  of  towns.  In 
the  Pale  and  in  Poland  the  number  of  inhabitanfis 
in  towns  was  223  to  every  1000  of  rural  popula- 
tion, whereas  in  the  rest  of  Russia,  excepting  St. 
Petersburg  and  Moscow,  the  proportion  of  town  to 
country  was  only  59  to  1000,  and  even  in  the 
governments  containing  the  two  great  cities 
mentioned  it  only  rose  to  221  to  the  looo. 

Yet  even  with  this  tremendous  preponderance 

*  "  The  Jewish  Ouestion  in  Russia."     By  Prince  Demidoff  San- 
Donato.     Translated  fro/n  the  Russian  by  J.  Mitchell.     London. 


26  THE    NEW   F:X0DUS 

of  Jews  in  the  towns  of  the  Pale,  it  is  estimated 
that  there  were  from  400,000  to  500,000  Jews 
living  outside  the  towns.  The  laws,  and  even 
more,  the  spirit  of  their  administration,  rendered 
theirs  a  most  precarious  life.  They  had  legally  no 
right  to  own  land,  and  they  rented  only  under  all 
sorts  of  restrictions  and  liability  to  plunder.  But 
the  overwhelming  pressure  of  competition  for 
existence  in  the  crowded  towns  created  a  necessity 
for  their  spreading  into  the  country  which  literally 
bore  down  opposition.  They  paid  blackmail  to 
the  police  and  the  higher  authorities,  and  con- 
tinued to  live,  or,  rather,  to  exist. 

Both  in  town  and  country  existence  for  these 
Jews  was  a  problem  which  never  came  to  an  end. 
Of  all  the  gross  misconceptionsto  which  ill-informed 
writers  have  lent  their  minds,  there  is  none  at  once 
so  cruel  and  grotesque  as  that  which  Mr.  Goldwin 
Sjnith  reflects  when  he  paints  the  Jews  of  the  Pale 
^s  prosperous  usurers.  I  Jiave^ never  .jeen_any- 
1/  where  else  in  Europe,  not  even  in  the  poorer  part 

of    T,^SS^,   .,r]^iVh     I     l-nr^AAr    iii£j4---y-~Trinrp~^rPTT4K1p 

[poverty  than  is  the  rule  of  thdrjrjifis.  It  does  not 
'need  the  evidence  ol  an  eye-\vitness  to  show  the 
absurdity  of  the  other  view — the  figures  do  that. 
Let  one  only  try  to  conceive  each  ninety-four  Jews 
in2EiI^wns  of  Mohilef,  for  example,  waxing  rich 
and  fat  by  lending  money  to  the  six  Christians  who 
remain.  Since  Dr.  Johnson's  islanders  earned  a 
precarious  livelihood  by  taking  in  one  another's 
washing    there    has  been  no   other  such  comical 


THE    PARIAH    COMMUNITY  27 

economic  paradox.      In  truth,  not  a  third   of  the 
Jews,   even   outside  the  Pale,   have    had    money 
enough    to   buy    railway  tickets  to    the    frontier.    ^ 
Inside  the   Pale  the  most  grinding  pov/^rt^ijias    A 
always_reigned!     "       "  "^       ' 

.nother  feature  of  the  Pale  claims  attention 
before  the  question  of  laws  is  touched.  If  we 
include  Poland,  it  will  be  seen  that  its  entire 
western  edge  is  upon  the  frontier  of  Germany, 
Austro- Hungary,  or  Roumania.  This  border  line 
is  nearly  fifteen  hundred  miles  in  length.  By  law 
a  strip  thirty-three  miles  in  width  (fifty  versts) 
along  this  whole  frontier  was  marked  as  land  upon 
which  Jews  might  not  live.  Thus,  a  territory 
about  the  size  of  the  State  of  New  York  was 
sought  to  be  closed  to  them.  But  in  the  lax  days 
of  Alexander  II  this  further  attempt  to  bottle  up 
the  Jews  in  the  towns  of  the  Pale  also  failed.  As 
they  had  pushed  their  way  into  the  rural  districts, 
so  they  slid  past  the  policeman,  greasing  the  palm 
outstretched  behind  his  back  as  they  went,  into 
the  interdicted  frontier  zone. 

Here,  as  in  the  country  part  of  the  Pale,  they 
lived  under  constant  liability  to  police  raids  and 
official  exactions  ;  if  not  in  terror  of  their  lives,  at 
least  at  the  daily  mercy  of  every  one  in  authority, 
and  subjected  to  ceaseless  blackmail. 

We  have,  then,  3,000,000  of  Jews  living  in  the 
Pale,  of  whom  five-sixths  were  huddled  together  in 
114  towns,  in  four  of  which  they  were  over  8c  per 
cent,  of  the  population  ;  in  fourteen  from  70  to  80 


28  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

per  cent.  ;  in  sixty-eight  from  50  to  70,  and  in 
twenty-eight  from  20  to  40 — none  of  them  wealthy 
towns  or  centres  of  rich  industries — and  one-sixth 
Hved  outside  the  towns,  dependent  daily  upon  the 
whim  of  rapacious  officials.  In  any  case  existence 
would  have  been  difficult  for  a  people  thus  forcibly 
restrained.  It  was  made  almost  impossible  by  a 
ereat  volume  of  hostile  laws. 

In  addition  to  the  ordinary  taxes  borne  by  all 
Russian  subjects  alike  (and  these  the  heaviest  to 
be  found  anywhere  in  Europe),  a  whole  series  of 
special  taxes  were  invented  and  enforced,  against 
the  Jews.  There  was  a  tax  on  every  animal 
slaughtered  according  to  the  Jewish  or  Kosher 
rite,  and  another  upon  every  pound  of  Kosher 
meat  afterward  sold  from  it ;  these  imposts  made 
meat  cost  a  third  more  to  the  Jews  than  to  other 
people.  A  percentage  tax  was  levied  by  the 
Government  upon  all  rents  of  houses,  shops,  &c., 
received  by  Jews,  and  on  the  profits  of  all 
factories,  breweries,  vinegar  manufactories,  and 
other  industrial  establishments  carried  on  by  Jews. 
A  heavy  legacy  duty  was  exacted  upon  all  capital 
bequeathed  by  Jews.  Printing  presses  owned  by 
Jews  paid  annually  for  a  licence.  The  Jewish 
head  of  a  family  had  to  pay  a  special  tax  for  the 
privilege  of  wearing  a  skull  cap  during  family 
prayers,  and  the  very  candles,  which  every  Jewish 
housewife  must  light  Friday  evenings,  yielded  a 
revenue  by  taxation  to  the  Russian  Government 
of  ;^28,ooo  per  annum. 


THE    PARIAH    COMMUNITV  29 

All  these  taxes  are  still  levied,  and  all  the  other 
nnpositions  to  be  mentioned  are  still  in  force.  I 
speak  of  them  in  the  past  tense  only  to  show  what 
the  Pale  was  like  before  the  May  laws  added 
despair  and  choice  between  flight  and  death  to  the 
original  burdens. 

If  a  Jew  became  converted  to  Christianity  he 
received  a  money  payment_ofJrom  £2  to  £^ ;  if 
he  was  married,  and  his  wifcdecljned  to  follow  him 
to  baptism,  her  refusal  per  se  divorced  her,  and  she 
might  not  marry  again,  but  her  husband  could 
take  a  new  wife  on  the  morrow,  and,  moreover, 
could  baptise,  against  the_JLeserted  wife's  will,  all 
her  male  children  under  the  age  of  seven.  Pre- 
cisely the  same  privileges  were  extended  to  the 
Jewish  wife  who  should  become  a  convert. 

There  could  be  no  synagogue  in  a  town  con- 
taining less  than  eighty  Jewish  houses,  or  house 
of  prayer  in  one  with  less  than  thirty  Jewish 
houses  ;  and  the  robbery  of  plate  and  other  effects 
from  these  was  not  sacrilege.  Jews  who  held 
public  worship  or  prayer  in  any  other  place  than 
the  synagogue  or  legal  house  of  prayer  were  liable 
to  imprisonment. 

Jewish  youths  of  the  age  of  twenty-one  were 
stripped  of  practically  all  the  safeguards  and  legal 
reservations  which  enable  Russians  to  escape 
military  service.  No  Jew  could  be  a  member  of 
the  Recruiting  Committee  which  makes  up  the 
conscription  lists.  The  ordinary  rules  exempt- 
ing young  men   from  service  who  were  the  sole 


30  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

supports  of  families  only  occasionally  applied  in 
the  case  of  Jews.  Moreover^  worst  of  all,  if  in  a 
certain  district  the  number  of  Jewish  recruits 
presenting  themselves  fell  below  the  proportion 
which  had  been  expected,  enough  Jews  could  be 
taken  from  the  exempt  class  to  make  good  the 
deficiency. 

Let  us  pause  at  this  to  note  a  peculiarly  cha- 
racteristic Russian  trick.  These  conscription  lists 
were  (and  are)  compiled  upon  the  basis  of  the 
village  or  district  registers.  The  way  in  which 
these  are  kept  in  itself  suggests  a  whole  chapter 
on  Russian  administration.  It  is  enough  here  to 
point  out  that  at  its  birth  every  male  child  is  put 
on  the  registers  by  the  doctor,  but  if  he  dies  his 
name  can  only  be  taken  off  by  the  certificate  of 
the  village  priest  or  pope.  This  affords  one  of  the 
means  of  livelihood  which  the  pope  watches  most 
closely  and  employs  most  profitably.  Unless  the 
dead  urchin's  name  is  removed  from  the  register, 
the  family  is  liable  to  produce  him,  or  an  equiva- 
lent, as  a  recruit  when  the  twenty-one  years  have 
elapsed.  But  in  the  case  of  Jews  the  pope  cannot 
certify  to  the  death  of  a  child.  The  parent  must 
apply  in  person  for  a  death  certificate  to  the  Gov- 
ernor of  the  province  and  bring  witnesses.  This 
means  a  long  journey  and  great  expense,  which 
not  one  in  a  score  can  afford.  The  result  is  that 
many  names  are  carried  on  in  the  registers  to  the 
military  age  of  Jewish  boys  who  died  in  infancy. 
It  was  for  this  that  the  law  quoted  above    was 


THE    PARIAH    COMMUNITY  31 

made,  by  which  this  bogus  deficiency  may  be  made 
good  by  seizing  other  Jewish  youths  throughout 
the  district. 

Thus  it  comes  about  that,  while  the  Jews  con- 
stitute only  3.95  per  cent,  of  the  population  of 
European  Russia,  the  army  conscriptions  for  a 
series  of  twelve  years  (1875-86)  show  the  average 
proportion  of  Jewish  soldiers  to  be  5.97  per  cent. 

Yet  there  is  no  lie  of  which  Russian  writers  and 
apologists  are  more  fond  than  that  the  Jews  con- 
tinually evade  their  military  duties.  The  truth  is 
that,  by  a  device  of  counting  dead  men,  they  are 
called  upon  for  much  more  than  their  proper  share 
of  the  annual  recruiting  force,  and  the  very  opera- 
tion of  this  trick  is  made  a  reproach  to  them.  As 
foraskingfor  military  enthusiasm  among  the  Jews, 
let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  no  Jew  can  become  an 
officer  in  the  Russian  army,  or  even  an  officer's 
servant,  and  that  the  Military  Regulations  are 
studded  thick  with  insulting  and  injurious  refer- 
ences to  and  restrictions  upon  him  and  his  religion. 

The  restrictions  upon  trade,  upon  intercourse 
with  other  markets,  upon  the  holding  of  property, 
upon  practically  every  relation  of  life,  under  which 
the  Jews  of  the  Pale  suffered  twenty  years  ago 
were  literally  without  number.  The  legal  limita- 
tions alone  fill  a  volume ;  they  were  everywhere 
mixed  up  with  a  sliding  scale  of  illegal  exactions 
which  the  local  authorities  imposed  for  their  per- 
sonal benefit. 

In  substance  the  Jew  could  do  nothing  at  all 


32  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

without  paying  blackmail.  The  humblest  Jewish 
artisan — for  example,  a  tailor — could  be  raided  by 
the  police  if  when  he  made  a  coat  for  you  he 
brought  it  to  you  with  the  buttons  sewed  on. 
There  was  a  law  which  said  that  Jewish  artisans 
should  sell  only  the  product  of  their  own  handi- 
work. "  Very  well,"  the  police  would  ask,  "  do  you 
pretend  that  you  made  these  buttons  yourself  ?  " 
To  such  a  question  there  were  only  two  answers  r 
one  was  to  yield  in  despair  and  surrender  the  trade- 
guild  passport  which  it  had  taken  years  to  gain  ; 
the  other  was  to  give  the  policeman  three  roubles. 
Thus  underhand  dealing  became  a  law  ot 
existence.  So  far  as  the  power  of  a  despotic 
empire  could  do  it  moral  degradation  was  thrust 
upon  this  people.  Money  became  the  one  thing 
which  could  make  life  tolerable — money  for  the 
police,  money  for  the  informer,  money  for  the 
local  magistrates,  money  for  every  harpy  and 
blackguard  with  the  will  and  power  to  molest. 
Whenever  men  engage  in  an  unhealthy  and  un- 
\  natural  competition  those  with  the  worst  and  most 
dangerous  qualities  rise  to  the  top,  trampling  the 
weaker  and  softer  ones  under  foot.  We  have 
seen  something  like  that  in  Wall  Street,  where 
there  are  no  laws  abridging  virtuous  happiness  or 
making  dishonesty  the  condition  of  life.  In  the 
terrible  Jewish  Pale  the  wonder  is  that  any 
religion,  any  charity,  any  rudimentary  notion 
whatever  of  honesty  survived.  The  truth  is  that 
the  great  bulk  of  the  Jews  of  the  Pale,  like  the 


THE  PARIAH  COMMUNITY  33 

hideously  poor  everywhere,  remained  a  simple  and 
devout  people,  clinging  doggedly  to  their  despised 
faith,  helping  one  another  where  they  could,  and 
keeping  up  virtues  of  temperance,  family  affection, 
and  chastity  which  their  Russian  taskmasters 
scarcely  knew  by  name. 

But  in  those  days  there  were  methods  of  escap- 
ing from  the  Pale. 

The  Jews  of  Western  Europe,  even  in  the  dark*\ 
est  days  of  blind  mediaeval  persecution,  had  theirl 
brethren  dwelling  in  the  palaces  and  castles  of  thef 
rulers  of  the  land,  clad  in  rich  raiment  and  corr^ 
manding  respect  for  their  loner  beards  from  even 
the  ribald  men-at-arms — I  mean  the  physicians. 
In  Russia  in  our  own  century  the  Jewish  doctor 
made  the  pioneer  experiments  with  that  ticklish 
affair,  the  toleration  of  a  Slav.  After  him  came 
the  Jewish  scholar,  then  the  Jewish  merchant 
prince.  All  this  will  be  traced  in  detail  further 
on.  It  is  enough  here  to  say  that  at  last,  by  the 
edicts  of  M^rch  16,  1859,  Nov.  27,  [861,  and  June 
28,  1865,  the  Czar  Alexander  1 1  threw  all  Russia 
open  to  Jews  who  could  tulfil  certain  COndiUorfgr 

Besides  the  Jewish  physicians  and  surgeons, 
graduates  of  universities,  and  merchants  of  the  first 
guild,  who  still  retain  the  right  of  residence  outside 
the  Pale,  skilled  artisans  were  now  allowed  to 
move  into  Russia  proper,  and  settle  where  they 
pleased.  They  did  this  under  restrictions  and 
conditions  of  espionage  and  arbitrary  attack  which 
in  any  free   land  would   seem    incredible,   but  to 

c 


34  THE  NEW  EXODUS 

them  this  enlaro-ement  of  their  horizon  was  so 
wonderful  that  they  still  refer  to  the  time  as  the 
"  o^olden  age  "  for  Jews. 

In  no  place,  for  example,  were  they  allowed 
equal  civic  or  religious  rights  with  Russians  ;  no- 
where were  they  permitted  to  forget  what  indeed 
the  law  of  1876  explicitly  reminded  them  of — that 
"Jews  are  aliens,  whose  social  rights  are  regulated 
by  special  ordinances."  '^  But,  subject  to  the  old 
laws,  which  now  for  fifteen  years  were  but  languidly 
enforced  by  the  local  officials,  nearly  or  quite  a 
million  Jews  came  to  live  in  St.  Petersburg, 
Moscow,  Kieff,  Nijni-Novgorod,  Smolensk,  and 
the  other  larger  towns  outside  the  Pale.  Here 
they  settled  themselves  in  something  like  security, 
educated  their  children,  extended  their  business 
operations,  and  multiplied  after  their  kind. 

For  these  fifteen  or  twenty  years  life  was  per- 
haps in  some  small  degree  easier  in  the  Pale,  as 
well.  The  Jewish  population,  which  previously 
had  been  increasing  with  dread  rapidity,  became 
about  stationary  under  the  reduction  by  this  outlet 
of  eastward  emigration.  The  ruling  poverty  was 
scarcely  lessened,  because  the  best  workmen  and 
the  most  active  spirits  were  those  which  had 
strayed  off  into  Russia  proper.  But  there  was  a 
little  more  bread  to  eat  for  those  who  were  left 
behind,  and,  under  the  influence  of  a  kindlier 
atmosphere  wafted  from  St.  Petersburg,  the  burden 

*  "  Law  upon  Status,"  vol.  i\.  note  7,  §  835.     1876. 


.: 


THE   PARIAH   COMMUNITY  35 

of  blackmailing  officials  pressed  less  heavily  upon 
them. 

It  was  a  season  of  stacrnation  inside  the  Pale — 
sorrowful  enough  for  any  of  us  to  contemplate,  but 
representing  in  retrospect  now  an  almost  ideal 
peace  to  the  inhabitants.  It  was  a  time  of  hopeful 
energy^  of  high  educational  and  professional  dis- 
tinction, and  of  growing  aspirations  and  achieve- 
ment to  the  Jews  in  Russia  outside  the  Pale. 
The  story  of  how  they  reached  this  promising 
position,  and  of  the  effect  it  had  upon  their  cha- 
racter as  a  race,  and  upon  the  conditions  about 
them,  will  be  told  in  its  place,  and  I  trust  will  be 
thought  worth  the  telling. 

The  story  of  how,  suddenly  and  without  warning 
or  reason,  this  work  of  a  score  of  years  of  tolera- 
tion and  intelligence  was  at  a  stroke  undone  ;  of 
how  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people^  were  and  are 
still  being  torn  from  their  homes,  ^swindled  and 
robbed  of  their  possessions,  and  driven  like  crimi- 
nals into  that  present  pen  of  horrors,  tTie  Pale, 
or  beyond  the  borders  of  their  native  land,  it  will 
be  difficult  to  tell  with  either  completeness  or 
adequate  force. 


CHAPTER    in 

THE   BARBARIAN  AND   HIS  STORY 

The  traveller,  making  his  slow  way  in  summer 
over  the  vast,  sprawling,  sparsely  settled  continent 
called  Russia,  is  struck  by  nothing  else  so  much 
as  the  weird  likeness  presented  everywhere  to  the 
more  backward  as'ricultural  districts  of  the  United 

O  ^     —I. 

States.  The  tine  dry  air,  the  splendid  sunsets, 
the  mystic  movement  of  the  rolling  clouds,  are 
all  American  ;  so,  too,  are  the  unspeakable  country 
roads,  the  grey,  old,  unpainted  wooden  houses 
and  sheds,  the  well-curbs  with  long  reaches,  and 
the  huge  piles  of  cordwood  bordering  every  road. 
The  very  locomotives  have  bulging,  smokestacks, 
after  a  fashion  now  almost  forgotten  in  America, 
and  fill  the  rural  atmosphere  with  the  pleasant 
scent  of  burned  hard  wood.  The  railway  stations 
and  the  buildings  about  them  are  all  of  wood, 
decorated  with  stereotyped  patterns  of  carpenters' 
ornamental  scroll  work,  and  painted  with  that 
single  priming  coat  of  ochre  which  one  associates 
always  with  the  temporary  structures  of  a  picnic 
ground.  The  forests  are  of  birch  and  ash. 
Water  melons  are  everywhere  for  sale,  and  the 
fields  are  white  with  buckwheat.     The  panorama 


THE  BARBARIAN  AND  HIS  STORY  37 

from    the   car    window  is   literally  crowded   wil 
suggestions  of  the  New  World. 

Russia  is  indeed  a  new  worl^^^so  new  as  t( 
tread  up6n  the]^Kgglb  of-tHe  hindermost  thing  in^ 
old  worlds.  Watching  and  pondering  its  varying 
manifestarions,  I  could  never  rid  myself  of  the 
^thought  that  it  was  a  kind  of  America  in  which 
the  early  civilised  settlers  had  been  overwhelmed 
and  absorbed  by  the  aborigines.  Everywhere  one 
"got  the  sense  of  dogarted  glories,  of  vanished  arts 
and  forgotten  knowledge.  To  the  genuine  aims 
and  works  of  a  real  race  had  succeeded  the  squalid 
views  and  surface  purposes  of  a  mongrel  and  half- 
caste  people,  through  whose  feeble  and  fickle  hands 
everything  was  slipping  back  into  barbarism. 

There  was  a  different  Russia_once — a  Russia 
which  moved  quite  abreast  of^Chnstian  Europe, 
which  in  art  and  architecture,  in  skilled  industries 
and  in  general  learning^__was_not  inferior  to  the 
England  or  France  of  its  time.  The  Northman 
Viking  dynasty  which  Rurik  founded  at  Novgorod 
and  which  his  children  enthroned  at  Holy  Kieff 
was  as  western  in  spirit  as  that  of  Charlemagne. 
The  three  daughters  of  Yaroslav  wedded  the 
Kings  of  France,  of  Norway,  and  of  Hungary, 
and  his  grandson  took  for  wife  Gyda,  the  daughter 
of  the  English  Harold.  In  that  far-off  time 
architects,  painters,  workers  in  mosaic,  and  teach- 
ers and  scribes  were  brought  in  great  companies 
from  Greece  to  the  Courts  of  the  Russian  Princes, 
and  art  and  letters  flourished  there  as  they  did 


38  I'HE  NEW    EXODUS 

not  tiourish  in  Saxon  England  or  Carlovingian 
Germany.  The  Greek  mosaics  still  decorate  the 
walls  of  the  Sophie  ski  Soboi\  or  cathedral  of  St. 
Sophia  at  Kieff,  a  building  founded  by  Yaroslav 
in  1017.  The  tomb  of  that  Prince,  in  a  neighbour- 
ing chapel,  shows  much  more  art  and  skilled 
workmanship  than  the  so-called  tomb  of  Athelstan 
in  Malmesbury  Abbey,  or  any  other  western 
carved  remains  of  that  period. 

It  is  even  on  record,  established  by  the  pictures 
in  the  manuscript  Chronicle  of  Nestor  (a.d.  1285) 
and  other  contemporary  works,  that  in  those  days 
the  dress  of  the  Russians,  nobles,  merchants,  and 
peasants  alike,  was  practically  that  of  Western 
Europe. 

The  change  began  when,  early  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  Tartar  hordes  of  Ghenghis  Khan 
burst  across  the  Ural  Mountains  and  overran 
Russia  to  the  Dnieper,  killing  50,000  people  in 
Kieff  alone,  and  devastating  the  land.  Thereafter 
the  House  of  Rurik  for  more  than  three  centuries 
waged  a  desperate  and  continuous  warfare  against 
these  succeeding  waves  of  barbaric  invasion.  The 
history  of  every  individual  town  in  Old  Russia 
through  this  300  years'  nightmare  is  made  up  of 
conHagrations  and  massacres.  The  dynasty  of 
Rurik  may  be  said  to  have  died  thus  fighting,  for 
when  Ivan  the  Terrible  finally  crushed  the 
Tartars,  it  was  only  to  clear  the  ground  for 
domestic  anarchy,  in  the  darkness  of  which  his 
line  perished. 


I 


THK   BAR[!ARIAX   AND    HIS   STORN'  39 

The  Russian  who  emerged  from  this  anarchy 
wore  his  shirt  outside  his  trousers.  This  badgre 
of  reversion  to  Asiatic  standards,  to  which  he 
has  steadfastly  cking  ever  since,  is  strictly  sym- 
bolical. The  old  Russia  of  the  saints  and  martyrs, 
of  the  Yaroslavs  and  Vladimirs,  was  definitely 
gone.  We  cannot  tell  how  deep  was  the  soil 
in  which  those  early  fruits  of  civilising  art 
and  literature  sprouted.  Perhaps  it  would  have 
exhausted  itself  in  any  case.  As  it  is,  the 
Tartar  w^ars  burned  it  into  utter  and  hopeless 
sterility. 

The  close  of  these  w^ars  and  of  the  obscure 
and  wasting  confusion  which  followed,  brought 
to  view,  as  I  have  said,  a  new  Russian — clad  like 
an  Oriental,  and  sunk  in  more  than  Oriental 
ignorance  and  degradation,  (_E^tTThol6gIcally  he 
did  notknow~~wtra  he  was — and  to  this  day  K^ 
has  not  discovered.  He  seems  intruth_to  havd 
been  an  amalgam  of  all  the  lowly  elements  which] 
had  survived  those  awful  centuries — a  mixture  01 
Lett,  Finn,  Lapp,  Cossack,  vagrant  Slav  of-^ 
thousand  different  tribes,  all  coloured  and  tainted 
by  the  savage  licence  of  ten  generations  of  Tartar 
conquerors.  He  spoke  varying  jargons  of  a 
debased  Slavonic  language!  Ui  the  highly  ela- 
borated Byzantine  system  of  Christianity — which, 
after  the  final  separation  from  Rome  in  1054  evolved 
a  far  more  complicated  dogmalKT'theology  than 
the  Latin  church  knew^ — he  had  retained  almost 
nothing,    but    had    become  merely    a  worshipper 


40  IHE    NEW  EXODUS 

of   sacred    pictures,    which    is    all   that    he    is    to 
this^y. 

Three  generations  of  strong  Romanoffs — 
Michael,  the  founder,  his  son  Alexis,  and  his 
son  Peter — devoted  something  over  a  hundred 
years  to  the  attempt  to  civilise  this  new  Russian, 
and  bring  him  into  the  fold  of  European  nations. 
The  first  two  of  these  Czars  laboured  chiefly  to 
establish  the  foundations  of  the  throne  to  which 
their  family  had  been  called,  to  systematise  repre- 
sentative and  leo^al  institutions  throuo-hout  the 
land,  and  to  restore  some  sort  of  spiritual  life  to 
the  nominal  Christianity  which  had  survived. 
The  third,  that  amazing  Peter  the  Great,  had 
vaster~3reams.  He  built  St.  Petersburg  as  a 
window  through  which  his  people  might  study 
Europe.  He  compelled  married  Russians  to 
abandon  the  acquired  Oriental  idea  of  secluding 
their  wives,  and  enforced  their  unveiled  attendance 
upon  the  "  Assemblies  "  which  he  instituted.  He 
made  his  subjects  shave  their  beards.  He  dressed 
his  army  in  the  wigs,  three-cornered  hats,  and 
broad-skirted  coats  of  Western  warfare.  He 
created  a  navy,  and  visited  half  the  Courts  of 
Europe  to  learn  new  tricks  of  civilisation.  From 
'.first  to  last,  the  paramount  idea  in  his  strange, 
wild,  tumbling  brain  was  to  drag  Russia  forcibly 
out^oT^tne  arms  of  Asia,  and  make  her  European. 
While  he  lived,  the  work  seemed  to  be  well  done. 
When  he  died  it  collapsed  like  the  proverbial 
house  of  cards. 


THE  BARBARIAN   AND   HIS  STORN'  41 

The  Romanoffs  practically  ended  with  the  great 
Peter.  There  had  been  four  of  them,  all  good 
men,  and  three  much  above  the  average  of  men. 
There  followed  now  thirty-eight  years  of  pitiful 
waste  and  retrogression,  during  which  two  vicious 
young  male  idiots  and  three  loathsome  elderly 
drabs  in  succession  astounded  Europe  by  hitherto 
undreamed-of  spectacles  of  buffoonery,  crime, 
ferocity,  and  animal  lust  enthroned.  At  the  end, 
what  problematical  drops  of  Romanoff  blood 
remained  in  existence  were  to  be  found  in  the 
veins  of  a  peculiarly  vile  and  disgusting  young 
Duke  of  Holstein-Gottorp,  whose  mother  was 
supposed  to  have  been  the  great  Peter's  illegitimate 
dauorhter.  This  German  Duke  was  made  Czar 
as  Peter  III,  and  a  few  months  later  was  murdered 
by  his  wife,  a  German  Princess  of  the  house  of 
Anhalt-Zerbst,  who  now  herself  ascended  the 
throne  as  Catherine  II. 

During  all  this  time — indeed,  from  a  period 
lonof  before  the  accession  of  the  Romanoffs — 
almost  every  Sovereign,  good  or  bad,  strong  or 
foolish,  had  added  something  to  the  already  huge 
expanse  of  Russian  territory.  From  the  fall  of 
the  Byzantine  empire  to  the  destruction  of  the 
Teutonic  knights,  through  all  the  weary  centuries 
of  mediaeval  warfare,  pillage,  and  smashing  of 
dynasties,  Russia  has  steadily  annexed  territory 
right  and  left,  north  and  south.  How  Catherine 
the  Great  still  further  augmented  this  vast  domain 
by  the   spoliation  of    Poland,  or  how   she   strove 


42  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

with  her  notable  powers  of  mind  and  will  to  carry- 
forward Peter's  task  of  Europeanising  Russia,  need 
not  be  dwelt  upon  here. 

No  drop  of  Romanoff  blood  flowed  in  the  vems 
of  her  descendants,  the  five  Czars  who  have  filled 
the  throne  since  her  death  in  1796.  The  pretence 
was  scarcely  made  at  the  time  that  her  son,  Paul, 
was  actually  the  child  of  his  nominal  father ;  no 
historian  treats  it  now  as  even  a  probability. 
Mirabeau  and  other  observers  of  the  Court  in  the 
next  generation  have  left  amusing  accounts  of  the 
precautions  taken  to  prevent  the  madman  Paul 
from  being  the  father  of  a  new  imperial  line.  His 
wife,  a  Wurtemberg  princess,  seems  to  have  made 
no  secret  of  them,  and  the  paternity  of  the  hand- 
some Nicholas,  at  least,  was  always  popularly 
connected  with  an  Alsatian  grenadier  of  humble 
origin  but  lofty  destinies.  However  that  may  be, 
the  Czars  since  Catherine  have  been  wholly 
German.  Th^y^ave  behaved  like  Germans, 
creating  a  prodigious  bureaucracy  in  imitation  of 
Teutonic  models,  dressing^  and  drillinj-  their 
soldiers  in  German  fashion,  forming  all  the  details 
of  their  Court  after  German  notions  of  what  a 
Court  should  be.  Alike  under  mad  Paul  and  the 
sentimental  Alexander  I,  under  grim,  stalwart 
Nicholas  and  the  romantic  Alexander  H,  the 
[work  went  on  of  striving  to  Europeanise  Russia. 
Thougli  each  pursued  this  ideal  in  his  own  peculiar 
way,  their  ruling  desire  was  the  same — to  confirm 
and  solidify  Russia's  place  among  civilised  nations. 


THE  BARHAKIAX   AND   HIS  STOR\' 


43 


I 


It  requires  a  mental  effort  to  realise  that  we 
now  confront  a  Russia  which,  after  200  years  of 
reluctant  shambling  and  shuffling  along  under  the 
whip  on  the  road  to  civilisation,  stops  short  and 
declares  that  it  wants  to  go  back — that  its  true 
affinit'teft-ai:e_with  Asia,  not  Europe. 

Moreover,  those  wTTonold  the  whip  are  now 
themselves  of  the  same  opinion.  The  moujik  and 
the  small  Russian  merchants  and  artisans  have 
never  wanted  to  be  civilised.  It  is  a  new  thing,  7 
though,  for  them  to  find  that  their  masters  in'y 
St.  Petersburg  feel  that  way  too.  Under  such 
conditions  the  backward  movement  has  already 
attained  a  tremendous  momentum. 

A  strange  figure  in  the  human  gallery  is  this 
moujik,  who,  stubbQrnTy~~and  placidly  resisting  for 
two  centuries  all  the  efforts  of  a  powerful  auto- 
cracy to  make  him  somethinp-  different,  remains 
to-day  just  the  manJie  was  when  the  Tartar  inva- 
sions ended  and  the  Romanoffs  began  to  create 
the  modern  Russin.x^He.  still  wears  his  shirt  |- 
outside  his  trousers,  in  silent  protest  against  the  -^ 
pretence  that  he  is  a  European. 

If  he  were  really  as  far  away  from  us  as  he 
thinks  he  is  and  desires  to  be,  one  might  find 
much  in  his  curious  character  to  like  and  to  dwell 
almost  tenderly  upon. 

The  childlike  qualities  so  markedly  developed 
in  most  Slavonic~pcopies  find  their  fullest  expres- 
sion in  him.  He  is,  ni^rjeov^^v-aj^—e^iceedingly 
docile  andkindlv-natured  child.     He  bears  with 


44  THE    NEW  EXODUS 

bncomplaining  patience,  in  all  his  weary  pilgrim- 
age from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  an  accumulation 
/of  burdens  such  as  no  other  people  in  the  world 
/are  acquainted  with.  He  dislikes  work  with  all 
his  heart,  yet  tramps  through  life  on  the  treadmill 
of  toil  ordained  for  him  without  protest  or  bitter- 
ness. When  he  gets  drunk,  which  is  whenever 
beneficent  chance  affords,  he  leans  for  hours 
against    a    fence  or  wall,   smiling  gently  at    the 

f^-^-^-^ers-by.  If  he  makes  any  demonstration,  it  is 
irow  his  arms  about  some  other  moujik's  neck 
kiss  him.  The  drunker  he  is,  the  more  affec- 
ately  fraternal  he  becomes, 
ifelong  communion  with  the  vast  flat-stretching 
p  ains  of  his  country,  with  its  enormous  tracts  of 
u  linhabited  land,  of  marsh  and  low-lying  forests, 
his  made  him  a  silent  man.  Nothing  is  more 
surprising  to  the  observer  in  Russia  than  the 
saqptacle  of  two  or  three  hundred  moujiks  going 
to\or  from  their  work,  or  even  out  upon  a  holiday, 
frclm  w^hom  no  sound  whatever  proceeds.  Great 
tnronp^s  of  thousands  will  assemble  at  Moscow  or 
t  Petersburg  to  watch  a  procession  of  ikons  or 
military  review,  and  preserve  absolute  noise- 
'essness  for  hours.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem, 
:hey  are  a  talkative,  even  garrulous,  people  by 
instinct.  But  their  conversation  is  limited  to  the 
dialogue.  Two  moujiks  alone  will  talk  each  other 
o  death.  Three  moujiks  together  are  reserved, 
half-dozen  will  say  next  to  nothing  at  all. 
Doubtless  this  queer  trait  reflects  the  universal, 


THE  BARBARIAN  AXD   HIS  SFORV  45 

omnipresent  burden  of  suspicion  under  which  their 
lives  are  passed.  They  are  never  sure  that  they 
are  not  outside  the  law,  because  the  law  means 
only  the  personal  disposition  of  the  individual 
policeman  or  small  official  toward  them.  In  ^e 
cities,  for  example,  the  moujiks  who  traverse  the 
principal  streets  all  walk  in  the  middle  of  the  road. 
Noting  this  in  St.  Petersburg,  I  commented  upon 
it  to  an  Eno-lish  friend  \onQ-  resident  there.  He 
told  me  that  at  the  Christmas  time  last  year,  when 
the  great  shop  windows  of  the  Gostinny  Dvor 
were  filled  with  their  richest  holiday  display,  he 
saw  a  moujik,  or  labouring  man,  attracted  by  a 
show  of  gaily- dressed  dolls,  come  up  on  to  the 
sidewalk  and  approach  the  window  to  look.  A 
policeman  roughly  bade  him  be  off^  and  the 
moujik,  taking  off  his  cap  in  apology,  crept 
humbly  back  again  to  the  middle  of  the  road. 
No  doubt  that  man  will  go  through  life  without 
once  questioning  the  existence  of  a  law  forbidding 
him  to  look  in  shop  windows,  if,  indeed,  he  ever 
arrives  at  the  point  of  distinguishing  between  law 
and  the  whim  of  a  policeman. 

Although  the  traveller  in  Russia  gets  a  great 
idea  of  the  variety  and  appetising  scope  of  the\ 
Russian  cuisine,  the  moujik  lives  very  badly.  The 
present  terrible  famine  has  only  made  him  a  little  / 
worse  off  than  he  was  before — the  margin  betweeiy 
him  and  starvation  was  already  so  pitifully  slender. 
His  staples  of  food  are  the  kasha,  a  sort  of  thick 
gruel,  mainly  of  buckwheat,  baked  in  a  bowl,  jLnd 


46  THE    NEW  EXODUS 

ekten  with  grease  ;  the  schtchi  or  soup  of  a  white 
(fabbage  peculiar  to  Russia,  eaten  both  fresh  and 
sour,  and  rye  bread.  He  knows  little  or  nothing 
of  the  taste  of  meat,  save  occasionally  when  he  is 
lucky  enough  to  get  a  little  piece  for  his  soup. 
He  consumes  great  quantities  of  weak  tea,  but 
rarely  tastes  sugar  in  it,  for  the  reason  that  the 
tariff  and  bounty  swindles  combined  make  sugar 
cost  five  times  as   much   as  it  does  in    England. 

J^e  drinks  z'odka,  a  raw  and  deadly  spirit,  by  the 
ailful  when  it  is  given  him,  and  habitually  spends 
a  large  share  of  his  pitiful  earnings  in  buying  it. 
One  of  the  most  melancholy  and  hopeless  features 
of  the  existing  famine  has  been  the  universal  cer- 
tainty that  the  moujik,  if  he  was  given  relief 
in  any  portable  form,  would  at  once  march  off  to 
pawn  it  for  drink. 

He  has,  as  a  rule,  a  stiff,  coarse,  mud-coloured 
beard,  and  wears  his  thick  hair  cut  short  and 
shaved  at  the  neck,  but  very  long  in  front ;  in 
imitation  of  the  portraits  on  the  ikons,  he  parts  it 
in  the  middle,  which  imparts  to  even  the  greatest 
ruffian  an  air  of  sweet  gentleness  deceptive  in  the 
extreme.  The  older  men  have  exceptionally 
heavy  and  shaggy  eyebrows. 

The  moujik  wears  a  pink  shirt — a  peculiar  tint 
of  pale  red  which  never  varies — and  wears  it  all 
exposed,  like  a  tunic,  belted  at  the  waist.  His  big 
bagged  trousers  are  tucked  at  the  knee  into  boot- 
legs. These  boots  become  to  the  eye  an  even 
more  familiar  symbol  of  Russia  than  the  red  shirt. 


THE    BARBARIAN    AND    HIS    STORY  47 

The  first  thing  one  notices  after  the  Russian 
border  has  been  crossed  is  that  every  one  wears 
high  boots — the  customs  officers,  the  train  officials, 
the  railway  porters,  the  cabmen,  the  soldiers,  the 
policemen — on  every  side  nothing  but  high  boots. 
Even  the  country  women  wear  them  when  they  do 
not  go  barefooted. 

The  rural  moujik,  who  represents  five-sixths  of 
the  population  of  the  empire,  lives  in  a  little\ 
unpainted  wooden  hovel,  rarely  built  with  a  second  \ 
story,  and  thatched  with  straws.  These  shanties 
are  clustered  together  in  hamlets,  in  groups  of 
fifteen  or  twenty.  Many  miles  will  intervene,  as 
a  rule,  between  this  rustic  village  and  the  next — 
miles  of  wild,  flat  land,  probably  unbroken  by  even 
a  road,  and  without  fence  or  wall  or  other  sign  of 
habitation,  much  less  a  house. 

His  communal  system  of  land  division  and  his 
dependence  upon  the  decisions  of  the  Mir,  or 
village  Parliament,  need  not  be  entered  upon 
here.  The  careful  explanation  of  all  this  which 
Dr.  Mackenzie  Wallace  made  fifteen  years  ago  has 
been  widely  studied,  and  still  remains  the  best 
statement  of  the  matter  in  existence.  The 
trouble  is  that  the  moujik,  whom  Mr.  Wallace 
even  then  suspected  of  not  turning  his  emanci- 
pation to  the  best  possible  advantage,  has  since 
gone  steadily  backward.  (As  I  have  pointed 
out  broadly  that  the  Ru^a.  of  the  fourteenth 
century  was  more  civilised  than  the  Russia  of 
the  seventeenth,  so  it  is  unhappily  true  that  the 


48  THE    NEW  EXOJ)US 

noujik    of    to-day    is   a    much    less    thrifty   and 

)rosperous  creatOre  than  the  moujik  of  1875. 

To  some  extent  this  is  his  own  fauh.      His  pas- 

sjbn  for  drink   and   his  childhke  inabihty  to  see 

le    value    of  consecutive    application    have    led 

liiti  into  the  vicious  trick  of  mortgagins^  his 
Aabour  whole  years  ahead.  The  Government  en- 
[courages  him  to  drink,  because  the  vodka  tax  is 
one  of  the  principal  sources  of  official  revenue. 
iBut  equally  harmful  to  him  are  the  protective 
Wiff  laws,  which  make  everything  he  has  to 
buy  twice  or  thrice  as  dear  as  it  is  anywhere 
else,  and  beyond  that  almost  the  whole  burden 
of  direct  taxation  falls  upon  his  overloaded 
shoulders.  This  poverty-stricken  wretch,  who 
when  times  are  bad  or  harvests  fail  is  daily 
brought  face  to  face  with  starvation,  has  to  pay 
an  annual  passport  tax  of  five  roubles — about  $3 — 
to  begin  with,  and  his  land,  house,  and  other 
taxes  make  up  an  aggregate  at  v/hich  the  poor 
man  in  any  other  country  would  stare  in  open- 
eyed  amazement. 

His  great  poverty  at  home  and  the  nomadic 
instinct  in  his  blood  make  the  moujik  a  notable 
wanderer.  V^ery  often  he  is  in  a  way  an  artisan 
as  well,  and  picks  up  a  little  work  in  various 
towns  as  he  passes.  Wages,  however,  are  so  low  in 
Russia — the  latest  report  on  the  subject  assumes 
that  while  an   English  cotton  spinner,    working 

10    hours    a    day,    earns    70    roubles    a    month, 
the   Russian   cotton    spinner,   working    1 2    hours 


THE   BARBARIAN   AND    HIS   STORY  49 

a  day,  earns  tqt  roubles  a  month"^ — that  the 
most  marked  success  in  securing  employment 
hardly  raises  a  strolling  moujik  above  the  level 
of  pauperism.  Many  trades  are  like  that  of  the 
carpenter,  chiefly  in  the  hands  of  travelling  bands 
who  go  from  place  to  place,  put  up  houses 
for  those  who  want  them,  and  then  roam  else- 
where. These  carpenters,  working  bareheaded 
in  the  open  air,  perform  marvels  of  skill  with  the 
adze,  which  is  often  their  only  tool.  If  trades 
unions  were  not  sternly  forbidden  by  law,  these 
capable  craftsmen  would  be  a  prosperous  people. 
Even  as  it  is,  they  seemed  the  most  contented 
men  in  Russia.  While  at  work  they  sleep  herded 
together  in  rough  little  shanties  put  up  for 
temporary  use  by  themselves,  and  share  every- 
thing, wages  included,  in  common.  In  the  long 
twilights  of  the  North  the  traveller  sees  their 
cooking  fires  coming  out  one  by  one  on  the  vast, 
desolate  landscape  like  the  first  evening  stars  in 
the  sky. 

Less  skilled  labourers  also  go  about  in  companies 
seeking  employment  as  roadmakers,  harvesters,  or 
farm  hands,  living  meantime  in  much  the  same 
way.  These  itinerant  bands,  when  they  have 
been  long  enough  together,  sing  in  concert  at 
their  work.  It  is  said  that  the  stay-at-home 
moujik  now  rarely  does  this.     The  soul  of  music 

*  Report  from  the  British  Embassy  at  St.  Petersburg  on  "  The 
Condition  of  Labour  in  Russia."  Summarised  in  the  Times  of 
January  21,  1892. 

D 


^ 


.50  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

has  been  scared  and  frozen  from  him.  He  used 
to  have  a  musical  instrument  of  his  own,  as 
national  as  the  cymbal  in  Hungary,  the  pan-pipe 
in  Roumania,  and  the  guitar  in  Spain ;  nowadays 
he  knows  nothino-  but  the  German  concertina. 

These  groups  of  wanderers,  moving  at  will  over 
the  immense  tracts  of  sparsely-populated  country, 
include  also  the  pilgrims,  of  whom  through  the 
year  a  half  million  are  on  foot  in  Russia,  and  the 
tramps,  if,  indeed,  there  can  be  drawn  a  satis- 
factory line  of  demarcation  between  the  two. 
And  now — not  for  the  first  time  in  Russian 
history,  indeed,  but  threatening  results  novel  to 
our  generation — there  is  added  the  sinister  spec- 
tacle of  the  remnants  of  whole  communities,  with 
their  children  and  their  cattle,  roaming  gaunt  and 
wild-eyed  across  the  never-ending  plains,  driven 
under  the  lash  of  famine  and  the  plague. 

I  have  lingered  thus,  at  length,  over  the  moujik 
because  he  is  the  foundation  upon  which  all  things 
truly  Russian  are  built.  His  character  and  con- 
dition furnish  the  key  to  the  entire  Russian 
situation.  The  relatively  small  class  of  Russian 
petty  traders,  master  artisans,  and  other  towns- 
people not  of  the  educated  orders  is  made  up  of 
the  moujik  with  his  shirt  worn  inside  his  trousers. 
Tljere  is  very  little  other  discernible  difference. 

This  class  is  a  small  one,  because  it  is  racially 

tificial.  The  Slavonic — or  at  least  the  Russo- 
lavonic — character  does  not  lend  itself  to  the 
development  of  what   in   England   is   called   the 


RUSSIAN     PEASANT    TYPES 
(Government  of  Smolensk) 


THE    BARBARIAN    AND    HIS    S'JORY 

middle    class.     There    is    the    moujik,   and    thei 
nothing  indigenous  between   until    you    come    to\ 
his  master.     What  does  intervene  is  chiefly  naj 
Russian  at  all.\ 

The  history  of  modern  Russia  is  full  of  confes- 
sions that  the  Russian  by  himself  is  "  no  good." 
The  three  strong  monarchs  of  this  period,  Peter 
the  Great,  Catherine  II,  and  Nicholas,  all  laboured 
hard  at  the  task  of  colonising  the   Empire  with 
people  from   other  lands,   by  whose  example   in 
industry,  thrift,  and  intelligence  the  native  Russian 
might  profit.      In  turn   Dutch,  German,   Swedes, 
and   Swiss  were  brought   in    and    established    in 
villages  or  on  the  soil  as  models.      The  experiment 
in  one  sense  succeeded  ;  these  strangers  prospered 
and  flourished  beyond  expectation,  branching  out 
into  new  fields,  creating  commerce  and  industries 
which  had  not  previously  existed,  and  thereby  en- 
riching the  State  as  well  as  themselves.     But  in 
only  the  smallest  degree  can  they  be  said  to  have 
served  the  original  purpose  of  their  Imperial  pro- 
moters.    A  certain  infinitesimal  proportion  of  the 
native  element  was  caught  up  by  the  current  of 
activity    they    set    in    motion,    and    spurred    into 
imitation.      But   the    overwhelming;   bulk    of    the 
native  population  declined  to  learn  or  imitate  or 
be  in  any  wise  affected.     Thus  to  this  day  you 
may  see  German  agricultural  colonies  settled  as 
far  back  as  the  great  Catherine's  time,  with  neat 
and  comfortable  buildings  and   closely-cultivated 
fields,  the  proprietors  of  which  are  all  men  with 


52  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

money  in  the  bank  or  out  at  interest ;  while  next 
to  them  are  Russian  farm  hamlets  made  up  of 
filthy  hovels,  with  fields  tilled  in  the  most  slovenly 
and  half-hearted  manner  by  moujiks,  who  in  their 
wildest  dreams  could  not  imao^ine  themselves  beings 
free  from  debt. 

This  points  the  fact  at  which,  perhaps  too  slowly, 
we  have  arrived,  namely,  that  the  commercial  and 
industrial  activity  and  prosperity  of  Russia  are 
almost  wholly  in  the  hands  of  people  who  are  not 
Russian.  It  is  not  alone  that  the  business  of 
St.  Petersburg,  Moscow,  Kieff,  and  Odessa  is 
principally  conducted  by  people  whose  fathers  or 
grandfathers  crossed  the  frontier.  The  great 
annual  fairs,  of  which  that  at  Nijni-Novgorod  is 
the  best  known,  and  the  innumerable  minor  fairs 
at  which,  in  true  Oriental  fashion,  supplies  and 
wares  are  still  concentrated  and  distributed,  are 
alike  dominated  by  everybody  rather  than  the 
full-blooded  Russian. 

The  same  thing  is  true  outside  of  trade.  If  a 
Russian  landed  proprietor  stands  out  among  his 
fellows  as  a  successful  farmer,  if  he  secures  good 
returns  from  his  estates  and  gets  his  rents  paid 
regularly,  in  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty  he  has 
a  German  steward.  It  need  hardly  be  added  that 
jthis  steward,  in  the  very  act  of  deserving  well 
of  his  employer,  will  have  made  himself  bitterly 
disliked  by  the  moujik. 

Here  is  struck  the  keynote  of  all  that  we  are 
considering.     The  Russians  as  a  whole  lack  the 


THE    BARBARIAN    AND    HIS    STORY  53 

-qualities  which,  from  the  standpoint  of  Western  j 
civilisation,  command  success.  They  see  the  alien 
wax  prosperous  and  commercially  powerful  in 
their  own  country,  where  they  grow  constantly 
.poorer.  They  are  said  by  those  who  know  them  ' 
Avell  to  be  the  most  amiable  people  in  the  world  ; 
their  amiability  would  have  to  be  superhuman  to 
stand  such  a  test  as  this. 

Among   the   strangers    within    the   gates    who 
monopolise  the  commercial  activity  of  Russia  and 
struggle  together  for  its  rewards,  the  Jew  is  natu-       j 
rally  foremost  in  attracting  attention.    .  He  is  first 
of  all  marked  oft  from  the  others  by  an  arbitrary 

cleavage  of  race,  religion,   and    blood pr-ejudice. 

Beyond  that,  as  we  have  seen  and  shall  still  more 
in  detail  observe,  the  law  has  fenced  him  round 
with  restrictions  peculiar  to  himself,  rendering 
him  in  all  men's  eyes  a  suspect  creature,  like  a 
ticket-of-leave  man  or  a  registered  harlot.  L_Still 
further,  the  limitations  placed  upon  him  have  forced 
him  to  work  in  a  field  where  whatever  he  does 
must  be  unpopular,  and  where  his  success  in  secur- 
ing even  existence  must  seem  a  sort  of  crime  to 
the  rest.  \ 

The  ground  having  thus  been  cleared,  and  some 
idea,  meagre  and  imperfect  as  it  is,  having  been 
given  of  the  external  conditions  of  the  question,  it 
will  be  possible  hereafter  to  keep  more  closely  to 
the  subject  of  the  Jew  in  Russia  and  his  tragic 
story. 


CHAPTER  IV 

BEGINNINGS   OF   THE   KUSSO-JEU'ISH   QUESTION 

The  Jew  represents  at  once  humanity's  oldest 
and  least  familiar  fact.  The  records  which  he 
embodies  visibly  before  us  in  his  curled  hair,  in 
his  eager  eyes  and  bended  nose,  in  his  gestures, 
his  utterance,  the  peculiarities  of  his  family  and 
religious  life,  belong  to  the  very  childhood  of  the 
race.  We  feel  or  simulate  a  tremendous  interest 
when  the  palace  tomb  of  another  Rameses  is  dug 
out  from  under  the  drift  of  desert  sands,  or  a  new 
triumphal  tablet  of  some  forgotten  marauder  king 
is  unearthed  from  the  dust  heaps  of  Nineveh. 
Our  library  shelves  are  filled  with  the  literature  of 
these  efforts  to  grasp  the  likeness  of  these  dead 
peoples,  to  fathom  the  secret  of  who  they  were 
and  where  they  went  to.  Our  scientists  measure 
skulls  and  compare  jaw-bones  and  wage  with 
one  another  an  endless  war  of  words  to  solve  for 
us  the  identity  of  the  Hittites,  the  origin  of  the 
Assyrians,  the  disappearance  of  the  Egyptians, 

All  the  while  we  have  with  us  a  people  older 
than  any  of  these  vanished  races,  to  whose  real 
history  we  pay  very  little  attention  indeed.  The 
Old  Testament,  we  know,  and  braggart  Josephus 


THE    RUSSO-JEWISH    QUESTION  55 

may  still  be  the  reluctant  resource  of  boys  in 
Puritan  households  of  a  Sunday  afternoon.  But 
the  connected  story  of  this  ancient  folk  has  not  to 
this  day,  save  in  Graetz's  massive  German  work( 
been  intelligently  told.  Yet  how  superbly  strange 
and  impressive  a  romance  it  is  ! 

The  Jews  are  the  sole  survjvors  of  antiquity. 
With  the  calm,  meditative  gaze  of  a  tent-dwelling 
people,  they  watched  the  dawn  of  human  history. 
They  knew  and  gave  a  name  to  that  mysterious 
first  race  which  went  off  into  the  darkness  as  the 
shadows  lifted — that  unknown  elder  son  of  the 
night  for  traces  of  whom  we  now  blindly  grope — 
the  "  Canaan "  of  Scripture,  the  Turanian  of 
modern  hypothesis.  The  Jews  saw  Chaldea, 
Assyria,  Babylon,  Media,  Egypt,  Phttnicia, 
Greece,  Carthage  rise,  flourish,  and  fall.  They 
saw  Rome  tower  up  in  the  West ;  expend  the 
greatest  effort  of  its  vast  power  in  smashing  and 
levelling  Jerusalem,  and  then  go  down  itself. 
They  saw  one  by  one  the  Byzantine,  the  Gothic, 
and  the  Prankish  Empires  soar  skyward,  darken 
the  heavens  with  the  wings  of  dominion,  ani 
tumble  to  earth  again.  They  saw  Spain  withered 
up  by  the  flames  she  herself  had  lighted  in  the 
auto  da  fe  of  the  Inquisition. 

Persecuted  by  all,  cursed,  feared,  quarantined, 
fettered  by  all,  the  Jews  have  survived  all.  One 
need  not  look  alone  in  Asia  Minor  for  peoples 
whose  practical  extinction  they  have  witnessed. 
Three  centuries  ago  the  Grand  Duke  of  Lithuania 


56  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

was  a  powerful  monarch  in  Central  Europe, 
strong  enough  to  make  himself  King  of  Poland. 
As  late  as  1566  the  Lithuanian  nobles  in  Diet 
assembled  decreed  that  Jews  should  wear  a 
yellow  head-covering  to  distinguish  them  from 
Christians.  Last  winter  a  friendless  emigrant 
girl  was  discovered  here  in  the  streets  of  London 
speaking  a  language  none  could  understand, 
though  the  linguists  of  several  learned  institu- 
tions were  applied  to.  Finally  an  amateur  phi- 
lologist wrote  a  letter  to  the  papers  describing 
the  sounds  of  the  girl's  speech,  and  this  led  to 
the  discovery  that  she  spoke  Lithuanian.  The 
gentleman  who  wrote  solving  the  mystery  began 
by  explaining  to  his  readers  where  Lithuania  was  ! 
Only  one  small  phase  of  this  race's jwonderful 
history  comes  properly  within  the  scope  of  our 
inqmryT"  It  is  a  common  popular  error  to  assume 
that  what  is  called  "  the  dispersion "  was 
incidental  to,  and  consequent  upon,  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem.  Four  centuries  before  that  triumph 
of  Titus  there  were  large  and  influential  colonies 
of  Jews  in  all  the  important  cities  of  the  East. 
Alexander  the  Great  was  deeply  interested  in 
them  as  a  people,  and  gave  them  many  privileges 
not  extended  to  other  conquered  races  within 
his  vast  empire.  His  successors,  especially  the 
Ptolemies  in  Egypt,  inherited  and  even  emphasised 
this  attitude,  until  there  were  said  to  be  a  million 
Jews  in  the  city  of  Alexandria  alone.  Exaggerated 
as  this  estimate  obviously  is,  it  serves  to  indicate 


THE    RUSSO-JEWISH    OUESTION  57 

how  generally  the  Hebrew  race  must  have  been 
distributed  throughout  the  immense  territory 
which  the  Gree^s^eld  by  conquest  long  before 
the  Chrjstian_£i:a- 

History  and  legend  throw  a  great  deal  of  light 
upon  the  character  and  achievements  of  some  of 
these  earlier  colonies.  We  are  peculiarly  rich  in 
records  of  the  ro/c  the  Jews  of  Alexandria  played 
in  civilising  that  part  of  the  world,  and,  later,  in 
influencing  that  strange,  evanescent  outburst  of 
Arabian  and  Saracenic  culture^  from  which  to  this 
day  we  draw  so  much  unsuspected  inspiration. 
We  know,  too,  how  strong  and  popular  a  force 
the  Jewish  residents  of  Rome  exerted  even  in  the 
days  of  Augustus. 

It  is  only.Jn  Russia  that  we  get  next  to  no 
trace  of  their  original  settlements  and  earlier 
history.  (Perhaps  this  is  not  to  be  wondered  at, 
for  the  story  of  the  Russians  themselves  is 
wrapped  in  mytH^and  fable  up  to  the  tenth 
century.  It  is  apparent,  however,  that  there 
were  ^Jews  inhabiting  the  basins  of  the  Volga, 
Don,  and  Dnieper  fully  500  years  before  Christ. 
At  the  time  of  the  coming  of  the  half-legendary 
Viking  Rurik,  in  864,  the  Jews  were  an  impor- 
tant element  in  the  population  along  these  rivers, 
and  in  the  east  and  south  of  what  is  now  known 
as  Russia,  and  had  been  for  ages  before  Russians  \ 
as  such  were  heard  of. 

*  "  History  of  the    Intellectual   Development  of  Europe."     By 
John  W.  Draper,  M.D.,  LL.D.     Vol.  i.  ch.  xiii.     New  York.    1876. 


58  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

In  the  Crimea  there  are,  at  Chufut  Kaleh  and 
Mangup,  cemeteries  of  the  Karaim  Jews,  with 
tombs  far  antedating  the  Christian  era.  The 
monuments  here,  and  the  ancient  parchments 
preserved  at  Chufut  by  the  Rabbi  Fircowicz,  and 
in  the  Fircowicz  collection  in  the  Imperial  Public 
Library  at  St.  Petersburg,  tell  a  story  unique  in 
the  history  of  Judaism.  The  Hebrews  settled 
here  actually  converted  the  barbaric  pagan  hordes 
of  the  Khazars  to  their  religion  in  the  eighth 
century,  and  the  larger  part  of  the  Karami  Jews 
/in  South  Russia  to-day  speak  the  Tartar  language 
famong  themselves.  They  are,  however,  very  few 
'  in  number — perhaps  not  more  than  three  or  four 
thousand.  Madame  Novikoff  did  not  allow  this 
to  deter  her  from  denying  that  the  Russians 
treated  their  Jews  badly,  and  then,  when  con- 
fronted with  facts,  explaining  that  she  referred  to 
the  Karaim  Jews  and  not  the  schismatic  Talmud 
Jews,  as  if  these  latter  were  an  unimportant 
minority,  instead  of  outnumbering  the  others  looo 
to  I. 

This  brings  us  to  the  grand  theological  question 
with  which  Jewish  history  is  so  dishearteningly 
entangled,  and  which,  however  brieHy,  we  must 
touch  upon.  I  have  spoken  of  the  conversion  of 
the  heathen  Khazars,  whose  realm  extended  from 
the  Caucasus  to  the  Don  and  Volga,  and  whose 
kings  thereafter  professed  the  Jewish  faith,  as 
unique  in  the  records  of  Israel.  It  need  not  have 
been,    were   it   not  for  the  fact   that   the   Jewish 


THE    RUSSO-JEWISH    QUESTION  59 

religion  was  in  its  essence  a  national  creed.  (_Xiie 
policy  of  its  priests  and  exponents  was  entirely 
one  of  exclusiveness.  With  this  solitary  e^cception 
of  the  Khazars,  pro|selytism  to  the  Jewish^faith 
has  been  unknown.  ^ 

It  is,  of  course,  useless  to  speculate  upon  what 
might  have  happened  had  the  spirit  of  Judaism 
contemplated  a  propaganda  among  Gentiles.  The 
Jewish  Jehovah  reigns  now  in  men's  consciousness 
wherever  the  idea  of  one  God  exists — among 
Mohammedans  not  less  than  all  varieties  of 
Christians — dethroning  Bel,  Jupiter  and  Woden 
alike.  The  Jews,  however,  have  had  little  or 
nothing:  to  do  with  this  world-wide  extension  of 
their  monotheistic  idea.  They  kept  their  Jehovah 
for  themselves,  and  never  dreamed  of  preaching 
Him  to  outsiders.  Rome,  with  its  addition  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and  Islam,  wdth  its 
addition  of  the  Prophet,  divided  the  great  propa- 
ganda between  them. 

This  fact  bears  a  curious  relation  to  our  imme- 
diate theme,  because  it  is  recorded  that  when 
Vladimir,  seventh  in  descent  from  Rurik,  and  the 
first  authentic  figure  in  Russian  dynastic  history, 
decided  to  forsake  the  heathen  gods  of  his  Norse 
fathers,  he  gave  serious  consideration  to  the  idea 
of  embracing  Judaism.  From  this  it  would  seem 
that  the  Jews  settled  in  Kieff  and  the  Ukraine,  far 
away  from  the  centres  of  population  of  their  race, 
and  influenced  by  their  success  with  the  Khazars, 
had   developed   a   missionary    spirit.      Whatever 


\\ 


6o  THE    NEW    EXODUS 


their   attitude    may   have  been,/ Vladimir  finally 
chose  X^iristianity  instead,   and   is   now   enrolled 


among.  Its  samts. 


j  It  has  always  been  noticed  that  the  conditions 
which  produce  the  most  luxuriant  growth  of  saints 
provide  the  largest  measure  of  unhappiness  for 
the  Jews.  Christianity  had  not  reached  its  fifth 
generation  in  Russia  before  it  had  a  calendar  with 
scores  of  native  saints  and  had  chased  all  the  Jews 
out  of  Kieff.  This  first  persecution  dates  back 
to  I  no,  under  a  monarch  whose  wife  was  the 
English  Princess  Gyda.  There  was  nothing 
unusual  about  it.  Indeed,  it  furnishes  proof  that 
Russia  had,  during  those  four  generations,  taken 
great  strides  toward  civilisation  as  Western 
Christendom  understood  it.  Bear  in  mind  that 
this  was  the  pious  century  in  which  the  authorities 
of  Toulouse  accepted  a  large  sum  of  money  from 
the  Jews  in  commutation  of  the  privilege  of 
Christian  citizens  to  strike  them  in  the  face  on  the 
streets  during  Eastertide.* 

Thereafter  for  centuries  we  get  no  glimpse 
whatever  of  the  Hebrew  in  Russia.  We  may  be 
sure,  though,  that  during  the  long  nightmare  of 
the  Tartar  invasions  it  was  looked  to  that  he  got 
his  full  share  of  the  woes  and  anguish  which  the 
unhappy  land  suffered.  How  terrible  this  share 
must  have  been  we  can  guess  from  the  fact  that 
the  mediaeval  Russian  Jew,  unlike  his  fellows  in 
every  other  country,  has  left  no  written  sign.     We 

*  Vaisscttcs  "  History  of  Languedoc." 


■: 


THE    RUSSO-JEWISH    QUESTION  6i 

know  absolutely  nothing  of  his  story  during  those 
darkened  ages. 

Meanwhile  the  Jew  of  Poland  emerges  into  the 
light  of  history.  At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  there  were  computed  to  be  200,000 
Hebrews  in  the  various  provinces  of  Poland 
and  Lithuania.  Some  had  been  settled  there  for 
centuries,coming  through  the  German  and  Austrian 
States  from  Italy,  Spain  and  France ;  others  had 
been  driven  or  had  escaped  thither  from  Russia. 
They  enjoyed  exceptional  privileges,  as  Jewish 
rights  went  in  those  days — had  entire  religious 
freedom  and  tolerably  broad  civil  liberty.  The 
spectacle  was  a  unique  one  in  Europe,  where 
Spain's  savage  crusade  with  stake  and  rack  seemed 
much  the  more  natural  and  proper  thing.  Mews 
in  other  lands  thought  of  Poland  as  a  veritable 
Land  of  Goshen.  So  many  German  Jews  crossed 
the  frontier  and  settled  there,  to  escape  the  perse- 
cutions  and  levies  of  their  own  petty  Princelets 
and  robber  Barons,*  that  their  language7~ln  the 
corrupted  Hebraised  German  known  as  jT^ish, 
became  the  speech  of  the  race! 

This  happy  toleration  was  too  good  to  last. 
Under  it  the  Jews  had  largely  lost  their  exclu- 
siveness,  and  lived  side  by  side  with  the  Christians 
in  entire  amity,  and  were  artisans,  merchants,  and 
farmers  like  the  rest.  The  reproach  of  usury^ 
cast  upon  them  and  earned  by  them  in  other 
countries  where  persecution  drove  them  from  more 

*  Stobbe.     "Die  Juden  in  Deutschland."     1866. 


62  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

honourable  pursuits,  was  not  deserved  or  heard  in 
Poland.*  But,  as  the  power  of  the  Polish  throne 
diminished,  and  the  authority  of  the  nobles  and 
clerics  increased,  matters  began  to  wear  a  different 
face.  The  Jews,  after  many  generations  of  friendly 
equality  and  frank  community  with  their  neigh- 
bours, found  themselves  legislated  once  more  back 
into  the  vicious  old  circle  of  being  forced  to  do 
certain  things  and  then  hated  and  abused  because 
they  did  them. 

Then  came  the  upheaval  of  the  Russo-Tartar- 
Cossack  wars  and  invasions  (1648-67)  ending 
with  the  treaty  of  Andrussoff,  whereby  the  second 
Romanoff  Czar,  Alexis,  obtained  Smolensk  and 
the  Ukraine.  This  was  the  country  in  which 
Jews,  as  I  have  said,  had  lived  for  two  thousand 
\  years.  The  Czar  at  once  drove  them  all  out. 
Thereafter  all  was  misery. 

/  There   succeeds    now   a   period   of  nearly  200 

/years,    filled     with     acute    disquiet      or      active 

/oppression  for  the  Jews.     The  refugees  from  the 

(Ukraine  who  had  settled  in   Little   Russia  were 

expelled  in   1727.      No  Jews   from  without  were 

avowed  to  enter  Russia  upon  any  pretext.     The 

few  physicians  and  other  professional  men  of  the 

excluded  race  who  did  manage  to  remain  in  Russia 

were  in  continual  jeopardy  of  insult  and  expulsion. 

Over   and    over   again    Russian    statesmen    who 

were  anxious  to  develop  the  resources  and  trade 

*  Professor    S.    Bershadsky.      "  The    Lithuanian    Jews."'      St. 
Petersburg  :   1883. 


THE    RUSSO-JE\MSH    QUESTION  6t, 

possibilities  of  their  backward  and  barbarous  land, 
hinted  at  the  advisability  of  bringing  in  some  Jews. 
The  Imperial  will  was  resolutely  opposed. 

In  1743,  for  example,  the  Senate  recommended 
that  Jewish  traders  should  be  allowed  to  enter 
Riga  and  Little  Russia  on  temporary  visits  "  for 
the  promotion  of  the  welfare  of  the  Empire  and 
the  development  of  commerce."  The  Empress 
Elizabeth  wrote  with  her  own  hand  on  the  report : 
"  I  seek  no  gain  at  the  hands  of  enemies  of  Chris- 
tianity."* When  the  broad-minded  Catherine  II 
ascended  the  throne  these  efforts  were  renewed, 
but  she  too  resisted  them,  and  says  in  her 
Memoirs,  "  their  admission  into  Russia  mio-ht 
have  occasioned  much  injury  to  our  small  trades- 
men." t  She  was  too  deeply  bitten  with  the 
Voltairean  philosophy  of  her  time  to  have,  or 
even  assume,  any  religious  fervour  in  the  matter, 
but  though  in  1786  she  issued  a  high-soundinp- 
edict  "  respecting  the  protection  of  the  rights  of 
Jews  of  Russia,"  the  persecution  on  economic  and 
social  grounds  continued  unabated. 

By  this  time  it  will  be  seen  the  laws   did,  how- 
ever, recognise  the  existence   of  Jews  in   Russia.) 
The  explanation  is  that  the  first  partition  of  Poland  I 
and  the  annexation  of  the  great  Turkish  territory 
lying  between  the  Dnieper  and  the  Dniester  had 
brought    into   the    empire   such    a    vast    Hebraic 

*  Observation  No.  8840.    Continuation   of  Vol.   \i.  of  Code  of 
Laws. 

t  The  Zaria  Journal,  Vol.  vi.     "  ("atherineas  an  Authoress." 


64  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

population  that  any  thought  of  expulsion  was 
hopeless.  Holy  Russia  could  keep  herself  uncon- 
taniinated  no  longer.  The  thief  was  compelled  to 
submit  to  the  pious  discomfort  of  keeping  the 
unholy  part  of  his  plunder  along  with  the  rest. 

The  rape  of  Poland  and  the  looting  of  Turkey 
had  brought  two  millions  of  Jews  under  the 
sceptre  of  the  Czar.  The  fact  could  not  be 
blinked.  They  were  there — inside  the  Holy 
Empire,  whose  boast  for  centuries  had  been  that 
no  circumcised  doer  could  find  rest  for  his  foot  on 
its  sanctified  territory.  To  an  autocracy  based  so 
wholly  on  an  orthodox  religion  as  is  that  of  the 
Czars,  this  seemed  a  most  trying  and  perplexing 
problem. 

The  solution  they  hit  upon  was  to  set  aside 
one  part  of  the  empire  as  a  sort  of  lazar  house, 
which  should  serve  to  keep  the  rest  of  it  from 
pollution.     Hence  we  get  the  Pale. 

/■Almost  every  decade  since  1786,  the  date  of 
(Catherine's  ukase,  has  witnessed  some  alteration 
rn^de  in  the  dimensions  and  boundaries  of  this 
Pale.  Now  it  has  been  expanded,  now  sharply 
contracted  ;  this  city  and  that  has  been  exempted 
from  the  laws  governing  the  territory  about  it ; 
deeds  have  been  made  lawful  in  one  of  its  pro- 
vinces which  were  penal  offences  in  the  next ; 
lifelong  residents  have  been  "  decanted,"  as  the  old 
Burgundian  phrase  went,  from  one  district  to 
another — all  in  the  most  wanton  and  whimsical 
fashion,  according  to  the  freak  of  a  despot  or  the 


THE    RUSSO-JEWISH   QUESTION  65 

interest  of  a  Minister.  To  trace  these  changes 
would  be  to  unnecessarily  burden  ourselves  with 
details.  It  is  enough  to  keep  in  mind  that  the 
creation  of  the  Pale  was  Russia's  solution  of  the , 
Jewish  problem  in  1786,  and  is  still  the  only  one[ 
it  can  think  of. 

Side  by  side  with  this  naive  notion  that  Holy 
Russia  could  be  kept  an  inviolate  Christian  land 
in  the  eyes  of  Heaven  by  juggling  the  map,  there 
grew  up  the  more  worldly  conception  of  turning 
the  Jew  to  account  as  a  kind  of  milch  cov/.  Traces 
of  its  dawn  may  be  discerned  in  Catherine's  later 
years,  when  Jews  were  allowed  to  enrol  them- 
selves as  merchants  in  certain  towns  and  enjoy  the 
privileges  given  other  people  on  condition  that 
they  paid  double  taxes.  The  local  consistorial 
organisation  which  they  had  received  from  the 
Polish  kings  was,  alone  among  all  their  institu- 
tions, retained,  avowedly  because  it  made  the 
collection  of  these  unjust  taxes  easy. 

Later  this  view  of  the  possible  profits  to  be 
derived  from  the  Jew  came  to  be  expressed  with 
utmost  frankness.  In  1819  Jewish  brandy  dis\ 
tillers  were  allowed  to  go  into  the  interior  and! 
setde  "  until,"  as  the  ukase  said,  "  Russian  masterj 
distillers  shall  have  perfected  themselves  in  the 
art  of  distilling."  They  availed  themselves  of  this 
permission  in  great  numbers,  and  at  the  end  of 
seven  years  were  all  summarily  driven  out  again, 
a  new  ukase  explaining  that  "  the  number  of  Chris- 
tian distillers  was  now  sufficient."     The  Imperial 

E 


66  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

ukase  of  July  29,  1827,  speaks  of  the  laws  about 
the  Jews  as  "  Government  measures  adopted  for 
deriving  State  advantages  from  this  race." 

fThQ  past  century's  history  of  the  Jews  in  Russia 
is  made  up  of  conflicts  between  these  two  impulses 
in  the  childlike  Slavonic  brain — the  one  to  drive 
tpe  heretic  Jew  into  the  Pale  as  into  a  kennel 
with  kicks  and  stripes,  the  other  guardedly  to 
aptice  him  out  and  manage  to  extract  some  service 

/  or  prgfit  from  him.  Now  one,  now  the  other,  of 
these  notions  has  from  time  to  time  obtained 
ascendency,  as  whim  dictated  or  need  compelled. 
On  occasion  the  two  appear  together,  yoked  side 
by  side,  yet  pulling  in  opposite  directions.  It  is 
to  this  that  the  Russian  laws  about  the  Jews  owe 
their  wild  and  chaotic  contradictions,  aiiH"  their 
inextricable  jumble  of  confusion  as  to  what  may 
and  may  not  be  done.  \  . 

The  Panslavists  of  Russia  nowadays  sum  up 
all  their  arguments  against  the  Jew  in  the  word 
"exploitation."  It  has  come  to  be  a  part  of  the 
Russian  language.  A  conversation  in  Russia 
about  the  Jews  would  be  impossible  without  it. 

LlhQse_who  use  the  word  so  glibly  seek  to  convey 
the  idea  that  the  Jew  is  being  driven  out  because 
he  has  ^^"exploited  "  everybody — the  noble,  the 
landed  proprietor,  the  merchant,  the  moujik. 
This  allegation  has  been  made  so  steadily  that  I 
daresay  a  great  majority  of  Russians  now  actually 
believe  it  themselves.  Certainly  the  opinion  of 
the  outside  world  has  been  largely  influenced  by  it. 


THE    RUSSO-JEWISH    QUESTION  67 

The  sober  truth  is  that  it  is  the  [ew  who  has 
been  "  exploited/^  I  have  shown  how  frankly  the 
Russian  Government  used  to  confess  its  purpose 
of  turning  the  Jew  to  account — sternly  curtailing 
or  abolishing  all  the  natural  rights  which  would 
minister  to  his  own  happiness  or  welfare,  but 
using  him  wherever  he  seemed  likely  to  be  of 
service  to  his  Russian  neighbours  or  to  the 
Government. 

(J[t_was_inJ;his  strictly  utilitarian  spirit  that  the 
keeping  of  tp\yerns  and  rural  grogshops  throughout 
Poland  and  the  Pale  was  put  into  the  hands  of  the 

JewS; _The  fact  that  some  of  them  still  remain  in 

this  business  is  one  of  the  chief  reproaches  levelled 
at  the  whole  race  by  the  Russian  anti-Semites. 
But  no  one  explains^  that  they  were  put  into  im^ 
business,  first  by  the  great  aristocratic  proprietorsl 
and  then  by  the  Government,  for  the  admittedj 
reason  that  thev^'alone  among  the  populatic 
could  be  trusted  to  themselves  to  keep  sober  tl 
while  they  sold  drmk  to  others.  Both  the 
Imperial  revenues  and  the  incomes  of  landec 
proprietors  had  for  their  chief  item  the  tax  and 
profits  on  the  drink  traffic.  Both  the  Finance 
Ministers  and  the  big  landlords  have  always  been 
anxious  to  increase  rather  than  diminish  this 
traffic.  The  special  Imperial  Commission  of  181 2, 
appointed  to  consider  the  advisability  of  forbidding 
Jews  to  retail  vodka  in  the  villages,  reported 
that  the  Jew  was  most  useful  in  that  capacity, 
and  that  if  he  was  sent  away  the  business  would 


68  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

fall  into  the  hands  of  the  native  moujik,  to  the 
destruction  of  business  and  moujik  alike. 

In  the  same  way,  one  hears  continually  of  the 
Jewish  usurer.  To  believe  the  average  Russian's 
talk,  all  the  money-lending  in  that  whole  great 
empire  of  debtors  is  done  by  the  Jews.  As  I 
have  said  in  a  previous  chapter,  this  is  wild  non- 
sense. The  rich  Jewish  usurers  in  Russia  can  be 
counted  on  one's  finders.  But  the  siornificant 
thing  is  that  these  big  money-lenders  and,  to  use 
an  American  provincialism,  "  note  shavers,"  have 
always  been  hand  in  glove  with  the  Russian 
authorities.  They  are  still  powers  in  the  land. 
Nobody  has  heard  a  word  about  their  being 
expelled  or  even  troubled.  The  reason  is  that 
they  are  systematically  "  exploited  "  by  the  Russian 
officials. 

A  curious  story  told  me  partly  in  Kieff,  partly 
in  Odessa,  illustrates  this.  One  of  the  oldest  and 
most  distinguished  native  families  in  the  Ukraine 
is  that  of  Kotchubey,  the  princely  head  of  which 
is  the  best  remembered  of  Mazeppa's  victims. 
The  Princes  of  the  house  of  Kotchubey  are  now 
much  better  known  in  Paris  than  they  are  in  their 
ancestral  Poltava.  The  last  of  them  to  live  on  his 
estates  in  old  Russian  fashion  was  Prince  Victor 
Kotchubey.  An  elderly  English  gentleman  who 
has  lived  since  youth  in  Little  Russia  told  me  that 
some  thirty  years  ago  he  was  in  the  office  of  an 
English  firm  which  was  introducing  agricultural 
machinery  in  the  South      One  day  there  entered 


THE    RUSSO-JEWISH    QUESTION  69 

a  tall,  fine  old  gentleman  in  a  silk  hat  and  dressed 
in  the  height  of  the  London  fashion.  He  spoke 
English  perfectly,  without  even  an  accent,  which 
greatly  delighted  the  young  British  clerks.  They 
were  still  more  charmed  to  learn  that  he  was 
Prince  Kotchubey,  the  chief  proprietor  of  the  dis- 
trict. He  ordered  one  of  the  machines  to  be  taken 
ito  his  estate  for  trial,  and  expressed  courteously 
his  pleasure  at  learning  that  these  smiling  young 
Eno^lish  clerks  would  attend  this  trial  on  the 
morrow. 

They  went,  anticipating  the  most  sumptuous 
hospitality.  The  trial  began  without  the  Prince. 
Soon  thereafter  appeared  on  the  scene  an  old 
man  dressed  in  Russian  moujik  fashion — huge 
boots,  a  tunic-like  shirt  open  at  the  throat,  a  fur 
cap,  and  with  a  whip  in  his  hand,  who  scowled 
about  him  and  brusquely  questioned  the  clerks  in 
Russian.  With  difficulty  they  recognised  him  for 
the  Prince ;  they  begged  him  to  speak  English, 
and,  when  he  refused,  to  allow  them  at  least  to 
reply  in  English.  He  roughly  told  them  that  if 
they  could  not  speak  Russian  they  had  no  business 
in  Russia,  and  roundly  abused  them  and  their 
machine,  which,  d-eeply  crestfallen,  they  took  back 
with  them.  Later,  when  a  friend  asked  the  Prince 
if  this  account  of  his  treatment  of  the  English 
youths  was  true,  he  replied  :  "  Yes,  it  was  my 
fantasy." 

The  heirs  of  this  old  savage  were,  after  the 
fashion  of  their  land,  stupidly  prodigal  and  waste- 


70  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

fill  youngsters.  They  got  into  difficulties.  A 
Jew  named  Michaelowitz,  living  at  Vannitsa,  and 
said  to  have  begun  life  in  great  poverty,  lent 
them  some  money.  Other  loans  succeeded,  with 
renewals,  interest  accumulations,  &c.,  until  ruin 
stared  the  Kotchubeys  in  the  face.  Then  some  of 
their  advisers  took  the  matter  up,  and  discovered 
that  Michaelowitz  had  been  guilty  of  gross  frauds. 
Suit  was  begun  against  him,  and  also  a  criminal 
action,  brought  by  the  judge  of  the  district.  He 
was  in  prison  some  days  before  he  got  out  on  bail. 
He  hastened  off  to  St.  Petersburg,  where  Ignatieff 
was  then  Minister  of  the  Interior.  The  next 
thing  was  that  the  judge  who  was  prosecuting 
Michaelowitz  found  that  the  case  had  been  taken 
out  of  his  hands  and  turned  over  to  a  judge  in 
Odessa,  who  was  Ignatieff  s  friend.  Michaelowitz 
was  now  promptly  acquitted,  having  been  his 
own  solitary  witness.  Shortly  thereafter  Ignatieft 
turned  up  as  the  owner  of  one  of  the  Kotchubey 
estates,  valued  at  300,000  roubles,  and  which 
Michaelowitz  is  said  to  have  grabbed  upon  a 
loan  of  125,000  roubles.  To-day  Michaelowitz 
is  thought  to  be  worth  3,000,000  roubles. 

uliiis  kind  of  Jew  stands  in  no  fear  of  molesta- 
tion. He  has  friends,  confederates,  partners  at 
Court.  The  Jewish  brothel-keeper,  the  Jewish 
receiver  of  stolen  goods,  the  rich  Jew  of  any  ques- 
tionable variety,  has  not  been  so  much  as  menaced 
by  the  expulsions  ;  he  has  friends  among  the  police. 
These  excrescences  upon  the  Hebrew  community 


THE    RUSSO-JEWISH    QUESTION  71 

are  cited  by  every  Russian  who  defends  the  May 
laws  in  justification  of  them.  It  is  characteristic 
of  the  whole  tragic  farce  that  this  handful  of  men, 
whose  delinquencies  are  quoted  as  warranting  the 
persecution  of  a  nation,  are  themselves  not  per- 
secuted at  all. 

During  the  Napoleonic  wars,  and  peculiarly  at 
the  period  of  the  invasion,  the  laws  against  the 
Jews  were  very  largely  relaxed,  and  Czar  Alex- 
ander I  made  a  personal  appeal  to  them  for  help 
against  the  French.  It  was  given,  and  in  return 
the  Imperial  promise  was  passed  that  they  should 
be  given  equal  rights  with  other  Russian  subjects. 
But  by  1822  this  pledge  had  been  so  completely 
forgotten  that  the  same  Czar  abolished  most  of 
the  consistorial  organisation,  with  its  independent 
communal  jurisdiction,  which  they  had  enjoyed 
since  the  days  of  the  Polish  kings. 

In  1825  Nicholas  ascended  the  throne.  Withm 
a  year  he  had  earned  from  the  Jews  that  sinister 
title  of  "The  Second  Haman,"  by  which  Israel 
still  recalls  him.  The  events  of  his  reign,  inti- 
mately connected  as  they  are  with  what  the 
world  to-day  indignantly  witnesses  under  his 
grandson,  will  be  studied  in  the  ensuing  chapter. 


CHAPTER  V 

UNDER   THE   "SECOND   HA  MAN'' 

The  Jews  of  Russia  called  Nicholas  "The  Second 
Haman."  They  could  think  of  nothing  more 
1  opprobrious.  The  Book  of  Esther  was,  and  still 
lis,  by  far  the  most  familiar  of  their  sacred  writings. 
JThe  story  of  the  victory  of  Mordecai  appeals 
powerfully  to  their  indomitably  hopeful  fancy. 
Scrolls  containing  it,  and  ornamented  by  marginal 
pictures  of  gibbets  and  hangmen,  are  everywhere 
to  be  found  among  them.  Every  Jewish  boy  in 
Muscovy  is  proud  of  being  able  to  recite  the  names 
of  Haman's  ten  sons  without  takine  breath.  The 
gallows  upon  which  they  were  all  hanged  looms 
ever  darkly  triumphant  in  the  Russo-Jewish 
imagination. 

[  Undoubtedly  the  thirty  years'  reign  of  Nicholas, 
from  1825  to  1855,  was  filled  with  special  hard- 
ships for  the  Jews.  At  the  time  they  thought 
nothing  could  be  more  terrible  than  their  position. 
But  looking  back  upon  it  now,  it  does  not  seem  so 
bad.  In  those  days  they  at  least  could  compre- 
hend the  intentions  and  aims  of  the  despotism 
which  oppressed  them. 

The  Czar  Nicholas,  a  man  of  immense  personal 


UNDER   THE    "SECOND    HAMAN  "  73 

force,  tireless  energy,  and  original  ideas,  which  from 
their  very  narrowness  ran  deep  and  strong,  had  an 
intelligent  theory  about  the  Jews.  He  wrestled 
for  thirty  years  with  the  task  of  carrying  out  this 
theory,  but,  though  a  great  number  of  Jews  got  hurt 
during  the  process,  he  accomplished  very  little  else. 

Nicholas  succeeded  to  an  inheritance  wasted  by 
war  and  weak  misgovernment,  and  generally  run 
to  seed.  He  threw  himself  with  his  whole  strength 
and  pride  of  character  into  the  work  of  regenerat- 
ing the  empire.  His  notions  of  what  regeneration 
meant  were,  of  course,  very  curious ;  they  might 
easily  have  seemed  backward  and  reactionary  to 
one  of  the  Pharaohs.  But  he  was  at  least  sincere 
and  devoted  and  consistent  in  his  labours.  He 
permitted  nothing  to  be  done  of  which  his  intelli- 
gence did  not  approve  simply  because  it  had  been 
the  habit  to  do  it.  The  most  awful  brutalities  of 
his  reign  had  a  reason  of  some  sort  behind  them. 

'Tjiisjgmverful  and  resolute  Czar  had,  as  has 
been  said,  a  theory  about  the  Jews.  He  recog- 
nised their  exceptional  mental  qualities  and  their 
economic  valuejg  the  State  as  no  other  European 
Sovereign  save_Napoleon  had  ever  done.  He 
believed  that  the^  could  be  made  of  the  utmost 
use  to  Russia  if-^and  this  "if"  was  the  key  to  his 
whole  attitude — they  could  be  cured  of  their 
religion.  The  first  half  of  his  reign  was  devoted 
to  harsh- bully ing^^^jLo  persecutions  in  novel  forms; 
the  latter  half  brought  milder  devices  and  more 
specious  tnclcs^^but  cudgelling  and  coaxing  had 


74  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

alike  for  their  end  the  breaking  down  of  Judaism 
as  a  creed  and  race  caste. 

Nicholas  had  an  essentially  military  mind.  He 
began  his  propaganda  against  Israel  through 
martial  channels.  In  April  of  1827  he  issued  a 
ukase  rendering  Jews  liable  to  military  conscrip- 
tion like  other  subjects.  Unlike  other  subjects,  the 
Jewish  recruits  had  to  serve  twenty-five  years  with- 
out ever  being  eligible  to  promotion.  But,  though 
no  instructions  were  committed  to  paper,  it 
became  speedily  understood  in  the  army  that  the 
Czar  desired  heavy  pressure  to  be  put  upon  the 
Hebrew  soldiers  to  win  them  over  to  baptism. 
This  pressure  became  universal,  and  naturally 
took  the  shape  of  cruel  torment  to  the  obdurate. 

But  this  process  was  too  slow.  Accordingly 
Nicholas  invented  a  scheme  of  military  colonies  or 
schools,  to  be  planted  in  the  remote  South,  to  be 
devoted  to  the  combined  conversion  and  martial 
training  of  Hebrew  youths.  This  was  an  adapta- 
tion of  the  plan  of  settling  regiments  of  the  line 
about  in  the  farm  lands  among  the  Crown  serfs, 
which  General  Arakcheieff  had  proposed  and 
carried  out  under  the  preceding  reign.  These 
colonies  were  an  absorbing  topic  of  agitation  in 
Russia  during  the  last  days  of  Alexander  I, 
and  gave  cause  to  numerous  riots  which  were 
suppressed  with  bloodshed.  The  Jews  now  think 
of  Arakcheieff  as  havings  also  been  the  aeent 
of  Nicholas,  in  the  establishment  of  the  Jewish 
colonies.     The  facts  are,  however,  I  believe,  that 


UNDER   THE    "SECOND    HAMAN  "  75 

Nicholas  did  not  like  him  or  employ  him,  and 
that  he  died  in  retirement  some  few  years  after 
that  Czar's  accession.  It  was  only  the  idea  that 
was  indirectly  derived  from  Arakcheieff 

Under  this  pretty  plan,  press  gangs  were  now 
deputed  to  prowl  about  the  Pale  and  forcibly 
abduct  Jewish  boys  of  from  five  to  ten  years  of 
age.  These  were  carried  off  to  the  southern 
settlement  camps,  and,  after  a  violent  baptism, 
were  trained  to  the  use  of  arms  and  brought  up 
as  soldiers.  Jewish  boys  are,  however,  extremely 
precocious  in  the  matter  of  theological  learning. 
Their  religious  education  begins  so  early  that  at 
eight  their  convictions  are  quite  as  well  grounded 
as  those  of  their  elders.  Some  of  these  lads  used 
to  resist  baptism.  Then  it  was  the  commandant's 
thoughtful  custom  to  put  them  in  solitary  confine- 
ment and  feed  them  on  salt  herrings,  without 
water  to  drink,  until  they  consented  to  accept  the 
baptismal  rite. 

I  myself  talked  with  a  venerable  man  in  Moscow 
last  July,  who  was  one  of  these  "colonists,"  as 
they  are  called,  in  his  youth,  and  who  was  brought 
by  the  herring  test  to  the  baptismal  font.  He 
was  very  proud  of  his  forty-five  years'  service  in 
the  army,  and  carried  himself  with  the  dignity  of 
a  veteran  of  the  Grenadier  Guard.  But  neither 
this  nor  his  juvenile  apostasy  prevented  him  from 
devoting  his  whole  time  to  the  succour  and  assist- 
ance of  the  poor  Jews,  then  as  now  being  hunted 
out  of  their  homes  in  Holy  Moscow. 


76  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

Some  of  these  Jewish  urchins,  thus  forcibly 
converted,  rose  to  rank  in  the  Russian  army. 
More  than  one  of  the  generals  of  Nicholas  are 
said  to  have  come  from  this  class.  Those  were 
days  when  generals  were  not  necessarily  educated 
men. 

This  trick  of  baptising  boys  and  giving  them 
new  names,  and  the  steady  pressure  so  roughly 
exerted  upon  the  Jewish  conscripts,  render  it 
difficult  to  trace  either  the  extent  to  which  the 
army  of  Nicholas  was  filled  with  Hebrews,  or  the 
measure  of  admixture  of  Jewish  with  Russian 
blood  throughout  the  Empire.  It  is  known  that 
Nicholas  paid  great  attention  to  this  press-gang 
method  of  gaining  young  Jewish  recruits.  They 
were  most  valuable,  because  the  great  landed 
proprietors,  who  were  supposed  to  offer  each  year 
for  enlistment  a  certain  proportion  of  their  serfs 
who  had  just  reached  the  age  of  twenty-one, 
habitually  bribed  the  recruiting  committees  to 
accept  worthless  and  decrepit  moujiks  of  forty- 
five  and  fifty  years.  As  the  term  of  service  was 
twenty-five  years  the  ranks  were  being  continually 
depleted  by  the  failure  of  these  worn-out  serfs  to 
keep  up  with  the  rest. 

But  it  was  not  alone  through  the  machinery  of 
the  army  that  the  proselyting  screws  were  put 
upon  Israel.  In  every  walk  of  life  rewards  were 
busily  dangled  before  the  eyes  of  Jews  if  they 
would  forsake  Judaism.  The  local  officials,  eagerly 
interpreting  and  putting  into  execution  the  desires 


J 


UNDER   THE    "SECOND    HAMAN "  77 

of  their  master,  did  abominable  things.  Some- 
times they  also  did  comical  things.  An  elderly 
rabbi  told  me  that  even  so  late  as  the  days  of  the 
Crimean  war  he  remembered  policemen  stationed 
at  the  corners  of  the  streets  leading  to  the  Jewish 
quarter  in  his  native  town,  their  business  being  to 
catch  Jews  as  they  passed  and  cut  off  with  scissors 
their  long  earlocks,  or  pies,  and  the  skirts  of  their 
caftans,  or  long-tailed  coats. 

Nicholas,  too,  made  numerous  serious  efforts 
to  plant  Jews  upon  the  soil  as  agriculturalists. 
The  story  of  these  attempts  is  one  of  the  most 
melancholy  in  the  whole  unhappy  records  of  the 
race — at  once  melancholy  and  grimly  grotesque. 
We  all  remember  the  scene  in  "Great  Expecta- 
tions "  of  the  little  boy  who,  scared  out  of  his 
wits  by  the  apparition  of  the  mad  old  spinster  in 
her  wild  bridal  array,  hears  her  awful  voice  bidding 
him  get  down  on  the  floor  and  play.  In  the  same 
fashion  the  wretched  Jew,  physically  feeble, 
poverty-stricken,  underfed,  cooped  up  in  the 
crowded  ghetto  of  his  town,  densely  ignorant  of 
even  the  names  of  plants  and  farm  implements, 
was  suddenly  commanded  by  an  imperial  voice  of 
thunder  to  be  an  agriculturist. 

Great  colonies  of  Jews,  sometimes  numbering 
hundreds  of  families,  were  now  gathered  up  pro- 
miscuously, transported  across  to  the  desolate 
prairie  lands  of  Novorosslisk  and  dumped  down 
upon  the  unbroken  soil  to  thrive  by  agriculture. 
In  any  case  the  experiment  could  have  promised 


78  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

scant  success.  As  it  was  managed,  it  became 
simply  murderous.  A  staff  of  officials,  almost 
as  numerous  as  the  colonists  themselves,  was 
appointed  to  control  the  thing.  Each  family  was 
supposed  to  be  granted  175  roubles,  but  of  this 
the  officials  gave  the  family  only  s*^.  The  rest 
purported  to  have  been  expended  in  buying  land, 
farm*  machinery,  &c.,  and  building  houses.  But 
seven-eighths  of  it  was  really  stolen,  and  such 
colonists  as  did  not  die  on  the  road  found  only 
groups  of  shanties  not  fit  for  pigs,  and  implements 
which  broke  in  their  hands.  Here,  under  the 
control  of  brutal  officials  who  knouted  the  in- 
capable, but  could  not  instruct  or  advise  the 
industrious,  these  unhappy  town  Jews  died  of 
epidemics  or  starvation.  The  chief  digging  they 
did  was  the  dig^orino-  of  Qrraves. 

The  report  of  M.  Stempel,  who  was  superin- 
tendent of  the  Ekaterinoslav  settlements,  made 
in  1847,  and  which  was  not  specially  sympathetic 
to  the  Jews,  presents  an  almost  incredible  tale  of 
suffering.*  It  is  quoted  from  the  official  docu- 
ments in  Prince  Demidoff's  book,  and  pictures 
the  colonists  as  arriving  at  the  beginning  of 
winter,  to  find  a  cluster  of  wretched  huts,  damp, 
half  open,  and  too  low  for  a  man  to  stand  upright 
in,  prepared  for  them  to  inhabit.  These  cabins 
had,  let  it  be  borne  in  mind,  cost  the  Government 
enormous  sums  of  money.     The  Jews  begged  to 

*  Archives  of  Kherson — Bessarabian  Board  of  Administration. 
Report  of  Feb.  15,  1849.     No.  116. 


II 


UNDER   THE    "SECOND    HAMAN  "  79 

be  allowed  to  reconstruct  these  shanties  ;  permis- 
sion was  refused  by  the  officials.  Stempel,  the 
superintendent,  then  suggested  that  the  Jews 
should  be  allowed  to  find  shelter  in  neighbouring 
villages  until  spring.  This  also  was  refused,  and 
they  were  peremptorily  ordered  to  occupy  the 
houses  assigned  to  them.  Those  who  had  already 
sought  refuge  in  the  villages  round  about  were 
driven  back  by  Cossacks  under  circumstances  of 
the  greatest  barbarism.  Epidemics  of  scurvy  and 
small-pox  broke  out  shortly  after. 

It  is  only  by  the  study  of  records  like  these, 
and  of  the  laws  forbidding  Jews  to  own,  lease,  or 
till  land  save  in  such  "colonies,"  that  we  can 
understand  why  the  Russian  Jew  seems  to  have 
no  vocation  for  agriculture.  It  would  be  a  highly 
miraculous  thinor  if  he  had. 

All  this  helps  us,  too,  to  comprehend  the  r? 
markable  solidarity,  at  once  so  pathetic  and  so 
prejudicial,  into  which  the  Russian  Jews  have 
been  driven.  (_Once  you  cross  the  Russian  frontier, 
you  can  tell  the  Jews  at  railway  stations  or  on 
the  street  almost  a^s_£asily  as  in  America  you  can 
distinguish  the  negroes^__  This  is  more  a  matter 
of  dress — of  hair  aiid-hgard  and  cap  and  caftan — 
than  of  physiognomy.  But  even  more  still  is  it 
a  matter  of  demeanour.  They  seem  never  for  an 
instant  to  lose  the  consciousness  that  they  are  a 
race  apart.  It  is  in  their  walk,  in  their  sidelong 
glance,  in  the  cajriage  of  their  sloping  shoulders, 
in  the  curious  gesture  with  the  uplifted  palm. 


8o  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

Nicholas  undoubtedly  secured  in  one  way  or 
another  the  baptism  of  many  thousands  of 
Hebrews.  But  he  solidified  the  others  into  a 
dense,  hard-baked,  and  endlessly  resistant  mass, 
the  like  of  which  no  other  country,  perhaps,  has 
ever  found  taxing-  its  digestive  powers.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  note  that  by  that  very  ukase  of  1827, 
extending  conscription  to  the  Jews,  the  Iron  Czar 
unwittingly  contributed  to  this  undesirable  end. 

In  a  previous  chapter  it  was  mentioned  that  the 
Empress  Catherine  II  allowed  the  Jews  who  came 
under  her  rule  by  the  spoliation  of  Poland  to  re- 
tain, alone  among  all  their  ancient  Polish  privileges, 
their  institution  of  the  consistory,  simply  because 
it  provided  a  simple  and  satisfactory  machinery 
for  the  collection  of  taxes.  Nicholas  in  the  same 
way  turned  this  remnant  of  Jewish  self-government 
to  account  by  making  the  kahals,  or  consistories, 
responsible  for  the  furnishing  of  quotas  of  Jewish 
recruits.  This  placed  a  tremendous  weapon  in 
the  hands  of  the  Elders  and  orthodox  leaders  in 
every  Jewish  community.  The  old  people  of  the 
strict  Talmudic  sect  had  it  in  their  power  to  de- 
liver over  to  the  bondage  of  the  army,  at  their  own 
discretion  and  at  any  time,  any  young  Jew  who 
offended  them,  or  whose  opinions  they  regarded  as 
dangerous  because  heterodox.  No  more  effectual 
means  could  have  been  devised  for  stamping  out 
every  vestige  of  independent  thought  or  impulse. 
The  theocratic  heads  of  each  little  Jewish  com- 
munity became  absolute  in  their  authority.     One 


UNDER    THE    "SECOND    HAMAN"  8i 

might  almost  say  that  they  had  the  power  over 
Hfe  and  death  in  their  hands.  Naturally  they 
used  it  to  enforce  observance  of  the  minutiae  of 
the  law,  to  widen  the  gulf  between  them  and  the 
Christians  round  about,  and  to  augment  the 
melancholy  isolation  of  their  race. 

The  abolition  of  these  consistories  in  1844,  by 
which  the  Hebrew  population  was  made  subject 
to  the  ordinary  civil  jurisdiction,  might  have  done 
some  good  if  it  had  been  a  complete  measure. 
But  the  duties  of  collecting^  taxes  and  of  making: 
up  recruiting  lists  were  still  left  to  special  Jewish 
bodies.  Thus  the  real  root  of  the  evil  was  not 
touched. 

Of  course,  there  are  those  who  will  not  regfard 
it  as  an  evil  at  all.  I  am  not  insensible  to  the 
picturesque  and  inspiring  side  of  the  picture — the 
spectacle  of  this  little  persecuted  people  clinging 
doggedly  to  the  smallest  detail  of  their  despised 
faith,  and  risking  everything  they  have  in  the 
world  for  the  sake  of  perpetuating  in  its  least  im- 
portant particular  the  ceremonial  of  their  ancient 
worship.  But  in  sober  fact  this  view  of  the  case 
is  most  apparent  to  those  who  know  least  of  the 
Russian  Jew.  This  theologico-racial  isolation  of 
his,  much  as  it  may  appeal  to  the  generous  imagi- 
nation, has  done  him  only  harm.  It  has  not  made 
him  broad  or  tolerant ;  it  has  helped  neither  his 
mind  nor  his  body.  Its  effect,  on  the  contrary, 
has  been  to  develop  unlovely  and  unlikeable  quali- 
ties in  him.      It  has  made  him  selfish,  fanatical, 

F 


\  82  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

narrow-minded,  ignorant  of  what  civilisation  likes 
and  respects — in  a  word,  unsympathetic.  It  is, 
more  than  anything  else,  responsible  to-day  for 
the  fact  that  no  nation  on  earth  desires  him  as  an 
immigrant  ;  that  in  every  city  to  which  he  comes 
he  finds  committees  of  his  co-religionists  formed 
for  the.  purpose  of  sending  him  somewhere  else. 

Even  his  virtues  are  of  the  unsympathetic  sort. 
He  is_^aJjemperate  man,  generally  a  teetotaler;  he 
is  a  creature  of  tireless  industry,  undergoing  the 
most  arduous  tasks  for  the  smallest  rewards  ;  he  is, 
perhaps  with  the  exception  of  the  Irish  Catholic 
peasant,  the  only  uniformly  chaste  man  in  Europe  ; 
h.£Jsa  faithful  husband  and  a  marvellously  good 
father,  taking  the  harshest  forms  of  self-denial  as  a 
matter  of  course  in  the  effort  to  provide  education 
and  a  start  in  life  for  his  children  ;  he  is  innately  a 
peaceful  man.  and,  in  whatever  country  he  maybe, 
a  docile  and  law-abiding  citizen. 

Let  us  take  this  rather  unique  catalogue  of 
virtues  and  use  it  to  illustrate  a  contrast  with  the 
London  dock  labourer,  with  whom  all  England 
and  the  world  at  large  sympathised  in  his  great 
strike  three  years  ago.  This  person,  if  he  drinks 
at  all,  is  about  the  drunkenest  man  on  the 
(habitable  globe  ;  his  indolence  is  a  thing  which 
10  employer  can  describe  in  language  fit  for  pub- 
lication ;  his  haunts  and  the  unspeakable  streets 
about  them  swarm  with  drunken  and  vicious 
women,  young  and  old ;  he  almost  rivals  the 
miner  of  the  north  country  as  an  habitual  wife- 


UNDER   THE    "SECOND    HAMAN "  83 

beater ;  his  neglect  of  his  children  is  at  once  the 
scandal  and  the  gravest  problem  of  East  London  ; 
fisticuffs,  street  brawls,  and  the  breaking  up  of 
political  meetings  are  his  unfailing  delight. 

Yet  we  all  took  the  deepest  interest  in  seeing 
the  dock  labourer  succeed  in  his  strike  for  what  we 
felt  in  our  bones  would  probably  turn  out  to  be 
only  extra  beer-money,  and  no  new  country  would 
object  to  him  as  an  immigrant.  Per  contra,  the 
miseries  of  the  Russian  Jew  had  to  mount  up  in 
the  scale  until  they  suggested  the  horrors  of  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  before  the  world  really  took 
much  interest,  and,  as  I  have  said,  nobody  wants 
him  as  a  settler. 

Of  course   one   might  explain   this   by  quoting 
the  sage  old  remark  that,  after  all,  there  is  a  good\ 
deal  of  human  nature  in  the  average  man.     But  \ 
there  is  something   more  in   it   than  that.     The  \ 
Russian  Jew  has  suffered  from  the  internal  effects   \ 
of  this    huge    legal    compression   we    have    been 
tracing.     He  has  been  driven  into  the  most  con- 
tracted   conceptions     of    things — into    the    least 
expansive    and    least    informed   variation    of  an 
exclusive  creed,   and    into    a   fierce    struofSfle   for 
existence  outside  the  bounds  of  natural  and  legi- 
timate  industry.    /  The    notions    of  tolerance    for 
others  or  indulgenc£__to_himself  are   equally  un- 
known to  hini.      H£L_alane__among  the  scions  of 
his  race  in  Europe  has  produced  next  to  nothing 
in  art,  music,,o^ letters.     When  we  have  named 
the  two  brothers   Rubenstein,  the  sculptor  Anto/ 


84  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

Icolsky,  and  the  young  poet  Frug,  the  list  is  well- 
migh  e3cTTausted.  If  it  were  not  for  these,  and  for 
a  certain  journalistic  activity  among  the  more 
modern  Jewish  graduates  of  the  universities,  one 
might  call  the  Russian  Jew  a  barren  and  sterile 
thing  in  the  gallery  of  nationalities. 

He  would^Jndeed,  be  a  hopeless  problem  upon 
ur   hands  were    it   not   for   the  strange,  almost 

^ ^  o 

startling,  recuperative  power  in  his  race.  The 
grandsons  of  these  bearded  and  caftaned  refu- 
gees, now  flying  in  dumb  and  ignorant  despair 
out  into  the_  unknown  Christian  world,  will  be 
recognisable  cousins  of  Heine  and  Mendelssohn, 
f  Spinoza  and  Eduard  Lasker. 

ut  to  return  to  the  chronicle.  Nicholas  is 
figured  to  our  mind  always  as  the  very  type  of 
Sovereign  who  would  not  learn  anything.  In  the 
matter  of  the  Jews  the  latter  years  of  his  reign 
show  a  considerable  change  of  attitude.  After 
1845  we  do  not  meet  many  of  those  arbitrary 
and  wanton  ukases,  curtailing  Jewish  privileges  or 
driving  the  Hebrew  population  from  certain  towns, 
which  are  up  to  that  date  so  cruelly  abundant. 
These  expulsions  from  towns  were  generally  based 
upon  the  petition  of  the  Christian  merchants. 
Among  the  edicts  ordering  them  are  many  curio- 
sities. The  Christian  guilds  of  Knyshin,  for 
example,  in  1845  procured  the  expulsion  of  Jews 
from  their  town  ;  in  1858  we  find  them  admitting 
that  this  had  done  injury  to  the  place  and  begging 
that  the  order  be  revoked.      Even  queerer  is  the 


UNDER   THE   "SECOND    HAMAN "  85 

record  of  how,  in  1829,  the  Karaim  Jews  ofTrok, 
in  the  Government  of  Wilna,  obtained  a  decree 
expelling  the  other  Jews  from  the  town. 

We  see  that  the  basis  alike  of  antagonism  and 
concession  was  economic.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  sort 
of  barbaric  variety  of  the  protection  idea.  Every 
man  who  thought  he  could  make  more  money  if 
he  were  relieved  of  Jewish  competition  was  an 
advocate  of  expulsions  and  a  policy  of  repression. 
Where  the  Government  here  and  there  enlarged 
Jewish  privileges  it  was  admittedly  because  it  had 
come  to  be  seen  that  the  country  would  profit 
by  it. 

As  railways  began  to  be  built  in  Russia,  and 
commerce  and  manufactures  took  on  a  new  mean- 
ing and  importanceTthejyalue  of  the  Jew  became 
more  apparent.  It  is  this  fact  which  makes  the 
closing  part  of  the  reign  of  Nicholas  seem  tolerant 
by  comparison.  A  good  many  of  the  earlier 
restrictions  were  lifted.  Jewish  contractors  were 
allowed  to  make  bids  for  the  carrying  of  Govern- 
ment stores  and  even  the  building  of  roads  and 
railways.  The  farming  of  brandy  manufacture 
came  to  be  almost  wholly  in  their  hands,  and  now 
even  the  inspectorships  over  this  business  were 
filled  with  Hebrews,  for  the  reason  that  they 
were  superior  in  both  honesty  and  bookkeeping 
skill  to  native~T^ssians. 

Nicholas,  also,  in  his  later  years,  exhibited  a 
great  liking\^lor  educated  and  intellectual  Jews. 
Hebrew   doctors,  dentists,  and    lawyers    were  in 


86  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

demand.  To  this  Czar  is  due  the  exception  made 
in  Russian  laws  in  favour  of  Jews  who  have 
graduated  at  the  higher  schools  of  the  empire, 
by  which  they  are  allowed  liberty  of  residence 
throughout  the  realm.  The  facilities  which  he 
finally  offered  to  the  Jews  in  the  matter  of  edu- 
cation were  not,  however,  very  generally  improved 
during  his  reign.  They  remembered  his  earlier 
devices  of  abducting  and  forcibly  baptising  their 
boys,  and  suspected  some  new  scheme  of  conver- 
sion or  perversion  in  this  opening  of  the  schools. 

With  the  death  of  Nicholas  and  the  advent  of 
Alexander  II  a  new  era  dawned.  Dr.  Mackenzie 
Wallace  has  drawn  a  spirited  and  comprehensive 
picture  of  the  literal  stampede  all  Russia  made  to 
reform  everything.  (j4jstory  records  no  more 
interesting  phenomenon^  than  this  frenzy  with 
which  the  whole  Slavonic  mass  set  to  work  ripping 
up  old  institutions,  knocking  over  old  idols,  and 
beginning  life  afr.esh__  We  have  to  do,  however, 
with  only  one  minor  aspect  of  this  universal  but 
delusive  awakening.    \ 

Almost  the  first  thmg  the  young  Czar  did  was  to 
revive  a  commission  to  inquire  into  the  condition  of 
the  Jews,  which  Nicholas  had  decreed  in  1840 and 
then  allowed  to  lapse.  This  commission  sent  out 
a  list  of  inquiries  to  all  the  Provincial  Governors. 
These  gentlemen  returned  voluminous  reports,  all, 
without  exception,  favourable  to  the  Jews.  Of 
course  it  must  be  remembered,  in  this  as  in  every- 
thing  else,   that    Russian   officials  report   to    the 


UNDER   THE    "SECOND    HAMAN"  87 

Czar  whac  they  suppose  the  Czar  wants  to  hear. 
The  air  was  surcharged  with  Radical  electricity.  1 
Everybody  knew  that  the  heir  apparent  had  been  1 
in  opposition  and  was  still  a  Liberal.     Rumours^ 
of  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs  already  sounded    ' 
in    men's    ears.     Nothing    seemed    more    natural 
than  that  he  should  be  a  friend  of  the  Jews,  since 
he  was  so  unlike  his  father.      Hence  these  reports   ^ 
sent  in  by  the  Provincial  Governors  are  not  to  be 
taken  as  quite  trustworthy  testimony.      Yet  they 
are   of  value  as   showing    how    much    interested 
officials  could  find  to  praise  in  the  Russian  Jew, 
once  they  felt  the  Imperial  tastes  ran  that  way. 
Indeed,  for  the  ensuing  fifteen  years  the  official 
literature  of  Russia  was  to  abound  in  testimonials 
to    the    industrial,    commercial,    and    educational 
value    of    the    Jew,    emanating    from    the    most 
authoritative  sources. 

f  Upon  the  strength  of  these  reports  were  issued 
the~^ases  of  1859,  1861,  and  1865,  already  re- 
ferred to,  h^whicir  Jews  of  the  first  mercantile 
guild  and  Jewish  artisans  were  allowed  to  reside 
all  over  the  Empire. 

^Ltjsjust  as  well  to  remember  that  even  tl^ese 
benefic^iit  concessions,  which  seem  by  contrafet 
with  what  had  gone  before  to  mark  such  a  vast 
forward  step  in  Russo- Jewish  history,  were  con- 
fessedly dictated — by  utilitarian  considerations. 
The  shackles  were'~stricken  only  from  the  two 
categories  of_Jevv's  whose  freedom  would  bring 
profit  to   Russia.      I  venture  to  call  attention  to 


88  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

this  at  the  risk  of  seeminor  unorracious  to  the 
memory^oTThe  "  Liberator  Czar,"  because  other- 
wise one  gets  a  false  perspective  in  the  picture. 
/There  has  never  been  any  time  when  the  Jews  in 
/Russia  were  treated  Hke  other  people.  Even  in 
/  this  perioci  which  we  have  now  reached — this 
"golden  age,"  as  they  call  it  now  in  bitter  retro- 
spect of  regret — the  milch-cow  theory  ruled  their 
forlimes.  They  were  treated  better  than  before 
only  because  more  enlightened  views  as  to  their 
usefulness  prevailed.  Those  Hebrews  who  seemed 
unlikely  to  be  of  public  use  were  kept,  as  before, 
cooped  up  in  the  Pale  or  running  the  gauntlet  of 
police  persecution. 

The  official  records  of  this  period  are  filled  with 
recommendations  from  local  officials  pointing  out 
places  in  the  interior  where  skilled  labour  was 
needed  and  where  Jewish  artisans  and  artificers 
would  be  of  service.  ,  Many  of  these  are  accom- 
panied by  the  specious  argument  that  if  the  Jews 
are  allowed  thus  to  settle  in  the  interior,  a  few  in 
each  town,  they  will  the  more  easily  become  con- 
verted and  amalgamated  with  the  Christian  popu- 
lation. \  Ministerial  decrees  over  and  over  again 
explain  themselves  on  these  practical,  not  to  say 
sordid,  grounds.  In  1867,  for  example,  Jews 
were  for  the  first  time  allowed  to  rent  fiour  mills 
and  factories  on  rural  estates,  because  "  no  one 
but  Jews  can  be  found  there  to  manage  these  mills 
and  factories,  such  management  requiring  special 
technical  knowledge  and  experience."    ,  Nowhjcre 


UNDER   THE    "SECOND    HAMAN "  89 

is  it  ever  sufjorested  that  the  burdens  resting  on 
the  Hebrews  are  hghtened  because  it  is  the 
civih'sed  and  human  thing  to  do. 

Still,  the  quarter  century  following  Alexander^ 
11 's  accession  in  1885  fairly  deserves  its  appella-/ 
tion  of  the   "golden  age"  when  what  preceded  i^ 
is  recalled.     It  seems  almo.st  beatific  by  comparisoi|i 
with  what  has  followed  it. 


CHAPTER  VI 

''THE     GOLDEN    AGE" 


raoi 
/oisr 


HAT  is  called  the  "golden  age"  of  the  Jews  in 

/  Russia  may  be   roughly  said  to  have  lasted  for 

1  twenty  years — from  1857  to  1877.      It  began  with 

xlie  efforts  of  a  high-spirited,  broad-minded,  and 

eager  young  Czar  to  profit  by  the  terrible  lesson 

Russia  had  learned  in  the  Crimean  war,  and  to  so 

widen  and  reform  the  national  structure  that  no 

such   catastrophe    could    ever    again    overwhelm 

narch,  army,  and  people  alike.      It  ended  in  the 

smal  confession  of  a  dispirited  and  pessimistic 

/old  Czar,  who  found  himself  against  his  will  em- 

l  barked  in  another  only  less  disastrous  war,  forced 

Ngloomily  to  recognise  that  his  efforts  had  been  in 

vain,  and  that  it  was  beyond  the  power  of  any 

human  force  to  civilise  and  satisfactorily  govern 

Russia. 

It  is  the  universal  testimony  of  fair  men  in 
Russia  that,  all  circumstances  considered,  the  Jews 
bore  very  well  the  measure  of  prosperity  now 
meted  out  to  them,  f  I  have  talked  with  numbers 
of  Russian  gentlemen  who  are  frankly  anti-Semitic, 
but  who  admit  that  fifteen  years  ago  they  were 
satisfied   with   the   progress   the    Jew    had   made 


Jl 


ALEXANDER    II 
[The  Liberator  Czar) 


^'THE    GOLDEN    ACIE"  91 

under  the  existing  llbeiial  conditions,  and  regarded 
him  as  a  good  and  valuable  citizen.  So  late,  in- 
deed, as  1880  the  Christian  merchants  of  Moscow 
signed  what  we  would  call  a  round-robin  setting 
forth  the  excellent  qualities  of  their  Jewish  asso- 
ciates on  the  Bourse _xir_- in  the  mart,  and  of  the 
Jewish  artisans  settled  in^the  city,  and  protesting 
aofainst  the  introduclioa  in  Russia  of  the  odious 
Judenhetze  then  rampant  in  parts  of  Germany. 
The  first  man  to  sign  this  was  M.  Alexeieff,  now 
the  bitterly  anti-Semitic  Mayor  of  Moscow  ! 

During  these  twenty  years  of  relative  enfran- 
chisement the  Jews  came  a  long  way  out  of  their 
shell.  The  cruel  line  of  race  and  creed  demarca- 
tion which  we  have  seen  so  deeply  drawn  in 
previous  reigns  became  less  prominent  in  men's 
thoughts — in  places  faded  away  altogether. 

In  nothing  was  this  beneficent  effect  more 
plainly  exhibited  than  in  the  matter  of  education. 
I  have  pointed  out  that,  although  Nicholas  nomi- 
nally freed  the  public  schools  to  Hebrew  children, 
the  old  suspicion  of  his  motives  prevented  any 
general  advantage  being  taken  of  this  step.  But 
this  not  unnatural  hesitation  vanished  at  once 
under  the  new  reign.  The  Jews  have  in  every 
land  and  in  every  age  been  distinguished  for  the 
prominence  they  give  to  the  education  of  the 
young.  In  Russia  they  had  the  added  incentive 
of  securing  the  special  privileges  for  their  sons 
which  still  attach  to  the  Jew  "of  the  higher 
education."     Every    father   who    now    could,    by 


92  THE    NEW    E:X0DUS 

doubling  his  own  labour  and  self-denial,  send  his 
son  to  school,  did  so.  In  the  cases  of  bright  and 
promising  Jewish  boys  whose  parents  were  too 
poor,  it  was  a  common  thing  for  the  neighbours  of 
the  village  or  quarter  to  raise  a  purse  among 
themselves  to  send  them  to  school. 

As    the^  native    Pnrrinn    hnc-    ]pgg    nf  tViicj    mrmtp 

'reofard  for  learning  than  any  other  white  man  alive, 
it-f511ows  that  the  proportion  ot  Jewish  scholars 
in  the  schools  far  exceeded  that  borne  by  the 
Jewish  to  the  general  population.  It  was  almost 
equally  a  matter  of  course  that  these  Hebrew 
students  should  carry  off  the  great  bulk  of  the 
prizes.  They  started  with  a  swifter  and  more 
facile  brain  ;  they  had  the  advantage  ,of  a  home 
training  in  another  language,  or  perhaps  two  other 
tongues,*  besides  Russian,  and  they  were  sustained 
and  spurred  on  by  the  peculiar  significance  of  that 
goal  toward  which  all  struggled — the  freedom  of 
"the  higher  education."  So  it  was  not  unusual 
to  see  in  a  school  where  only  one-sixth  were 
Jews  every  one  of  the  prizes  taken  by  this 
minority. 

Many  of  these  Jewish  graduates  of  xh^ gymnasia 
and  universities  entered  the  professions  as  physi- 

*  The  importance  of  this  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate.  The 
poorest  and  lowliest  Russian,  Polish,  Bohemian  or  Hungarian  Jew, 
through  his  Jiddish,  knows  enough  of  German  to  transact  business 
in  it.  This  gives  him  an  enormous  advantage,  with  strangers,  over 
his  neighbours  who  speak  only  the  outlandish  language  of  the 
country.  But  of  course  it  also  makes  him  all  the  more  hated  by 
those  neisrhbours. 


"THf:  (;()1.I)i:x  a(;r"  93 

cians,  lawyers,  and  engineers.  Others  embarked 
in  commerce,  happy  in  their  exemption  as  belong- 
ing to  the  "  higher  education,"  until  they  could 
win  the  other  title  to  emancipation  as  "  Merchants 
of  the  First  Guild  " 

The  constitution  of  this  privileged  commercial 
class  is  a  curious  one.  A  Jewish  merchant  inside 
the  Pale  who  has  annually  paid  taxes  amounting 
to  1000  roubles  (something  over  $600)  for  five 
consecutive  years  may  then  go  and  establish  him- 
self provisionally  in  a  city  of  the  interior.  Here 
for  a  further  term  of  ten  years  he  must  pay  this 
same  amount  of  taxes.  Then  his  term  of  probation 
is  over,  and  he  may  thereafter  live  wherever  in 
Russia  he  pleases,  and  even  buy  land,  subject  to 
certain  testamentary  restrictions. 

Neither  of  these  two  classes,  the  iiitelligensia 
nor  the  Merchants  of  the  First  Guild,  ever,  how- 
ever, became  numerically  important.  Save  in  the 
three  professions  I  have  mentioned,  the  Jewish 
alumnus  had  very  little  chance  of  a  livelihood  in 
Russia  outside  of  trade.  He  could  not  be  a  pro- 
fessor, he  generally  did  not  want  to  be  a  rabbi, 
and  the  civil  service  was  practically  closed  to  him. 
The  result  is  that  after  a  few  years  he  either^ 
drifted  into  business  or  emigrated.  As  for  the 
other  class,  it  seems  unlikely  that  there  ever  were 
at  any  one  time  more  than  2000  or  2500  Jewish 
Merchants  of  the  First  Guild.  The  number  in 
Moscow,  for  example,  was  estimated  by  well- 
informed    people    for   me    last   summer    at    120. 


94  'l^HE    NEW    EXODUS 

There  are  only  two  or  three  other  cities  in  Russia 
where  there  could  be  more. 

And  these  two  classes,  moreover,  concern  us 
the  less  in  that  they  have  scarcely  been  touched 
by  the  persecutions.  No  doubt  their  time  is 
coming,  but  as  yet  they  retain  the  privileges  of 
1865. 

Of  the  "  something  less  than  i  ,000,000"  Hebrews 
supposed  to  have  been  living  in  Russia  outside 
the  Pale  at  the  close  of  Alexander's  II's  reign,  the 
overwhelming  bulk  were  neither  alumni  and 
Merchants  of  the  First  Guild  nor  usurers ;  they 
were  artisans  and  the  families  of  artisans. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  I  have  instanced  some 
of  the  requests  which  came  from  all  parts  of  Russia 
proper,  after  the  Crimean  war,  for  the  colonisation 
of  skilled  labourers,  and  have  shown  that  the 
shackles  were  stricken  from  the  Jewish  artificer 
inside  the  Pale  primarily  to  meet  this  demand. 
Official  records  of  the  period  make  it  clear  that 
Alexander  II  himself  desired  to  see  the  Hebrew 
population  so  completely  distributed  and  scattered 
over  the  Empire  that  it  would  lend  itself  to  amal- 
gamation. His  lieutenants  never  rose  to  this 
height  of  statesmanship.  They,  indeed,  threw 
open  the  gates  of  the  Ghetto  and  let  60,000  or 
70,000  Jewish  craftsmen  out;  but  they  followed 
these  to  the  remotest  parts  of  Russia,  with  the 
whole  lumbering  mass  of  machinery  which  had 
made  their  previous  existence  a  burden. 

Wherever  they  settled  these  artisans  could  not 


"THE    GOLDEN    AGE"  95 

buy  property  or  take  up  a  permanent  residence. 
Everywhere  they  were  "  sojourners,"  members  of 
a  class  known  in  Russian  law  as  the  Inorodzy,  the 
other  members  of  which  are  "  the  Kirofhiz  Tartars, 
the  Samoyedes,  the  Kalmuks,  the  tribes  on  the 
Caspian,  the  nomads  of  the  Stavropol  Government, 
and  the  inhabitants  of  the  Komando  Islands." 
This  Jewish  artisan,  settling,  let  us  say,  in  Tula, 
had  each  year  to  get  his  certificate  of  good 
character  from  the  police  of  that  place,  and  his 
residential  passport  from  the  Jewish  community  of 
his  original  place  of  domicile,  renewed.  If  from 
whim  or  by  accident  the  renewal  of  either  was 
delayed  for  a  day  beyond  the  stated  time,  the 
fact  transformed  him  and  his  family  on  the  instant 
into  pariahs,  wholly  outside  the  law  and  helplessly 
liable  to  whatever  measure  of  persecution  and 
spoliation  the  police  might  choose  to  inflict. 

Beyond  all  this  he  was  entirely  subject  to  the 
will  of  the  artisan  guild  in  this  new  town.  Before 
he  could  take  up  his  abode  there  at  all,  he  had  to 
pass  a  practical  examination  in  the  working  of  his 
particular  trade.  This  was  always  a  fruitful  source 
of  injustice  and  iniquity.  The  examiners  would 
habitually  find  out  what  branch  of  shoemaking  or 
watchmaking  he  knew  best,  and  then  set  him  to 
show  his  proficiency  on  another  branch.  This 
trick  had  its  uses  in  more  ways  than  one.  It 
enabled  the  Christian  craftsmen  of  each  little  town 
to  regulate  the  number  and  skill  in  workmanship 
of  their  Jewish  competitors  ;  it  allowed  them  to 


96  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

pass  in  as  artisans  other  Jews  who  really  had  no 
trade  at  all  but  would  pay  for  an  artisan's  certifi- 
cate, and  it  afforded  a  broad  and  fertile  field  for 
the  cultivation  of  blackmail,  which  the  Christian 
guild  and  the  police  tilled  industriously  on  shares. 

Although  we  are  studying  a  "golden  age," 
there  were  still  other  restrictions  which  might  as 
well  be  set  down  here.  The  law  of  1865  per- 
mitted the  Jewish  artisan  emigrating  from  the 
Pale  to  take  with  him  his  wife,  children,  and 
infant  brothers  and  sisters.  These,  as  his  family, 
shared  such  precarious  right  of  domicile  as  he 
was  able,  by  the  means  enumerated  above,  to 
secure.  But  if  he  died,  back  these  others  all 
had  to  go  into  the  Pale  again.  Similarly,  if  he 
fell  ill  or  was  disabled  and  hence  was  no  longer 
able  to  work  at  his  trade,  he  must  return  to  the 
village  in  the  Pale  whence  he  came,  and  where 
he  had  been  unable  to  earn  a  decent  living  even 
when  in  health. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  gilding  does  not  bear 
overmuch  examination.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
ought  to  be  explained  that  while  these  harsh 
restrictions  and  many  others  remained  on  the 
statute  books,  they  were  by  no  means  sternly  or 
strictly  enforced.  The  police  used  them  just 
enough  to  extract  a  comfortable  livelihood. 

But  there  was  still  another  class  of  Jews  who, 
under  the  liberating  edicts  of  1857-65,  left  the 
Pale  to  spread  through  the  towns  of  Russia 
proper.     The  merchant  of  the  First  Guild  might 


"THE    GOLDEN    AGE"  97 

"take  with  himself"  as  many  Jewish  clerks  as  he 
"needed."  I  have  put  within  quotation  marks 
two  portions  of  the  sentence,  because  upon  their 
phraseology  has  turned,  as  will  be  seen  later,  the 
ruthless  expulsion  of  thousands  of  people.  But 
in  the  days  of  Alexander  1 1  a  loose  and  amiable 
construction  was  placed  upon  this  concession,  with 
results  not  wholly  fortunate. 

Considerable  numbers  of  Hebrew  clerks,  book- 
keepers, accountants,  and  superior  salesmen  were 
brought  into  the  interior,  under  the  obvious 
meaning  of  this  permissive  clause.  But  there 
were  also  large  numbers  of  less  useful  Jews  who 
were  neither  artisans  nor  clerks,  and  who  had  no 
legal  right  to  leave  the  Pale  at  all,  but  who  fol- 
lowed on  after  the  others.  /  The_xecent  opening  of 
Oklahoma  furnishes  a  rude_sort_ofj)arallel  for  this 
overflowing  of  Israel  from  the  Pale.  Lots  of 
people  joined  the  throng  who  had^no  business  to 
be  in  it — that  is,  who  were  without  money,  a 
craft,  or  a  legal  status — and  greatiyadded  to  the 
complications  and  difficulties  of  the,  others. 

These  outsiders,  if  I  may  use  the  term,  may 
have  lacked  trades  and  passports,  but  they  had 
enough  tenacity  and  assurance  to  make  good  the 
deficiency.  They  became  small  traders,  hawkers, 
hucksters,  messengers,  money-changers,  petty 
speculators,  and  the  like ;  running  a  desperate 
race  always,  and  being  incessantly  chivied  by  the 
police,  like  fakirs  at  a  country  fair,  yet  somehow 
scraping  a  living  together.     Soon  their  audacity 

G 


98  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

and  the  appetite  of  the  poHce  joined  forces  and 
devised  a  scheme  from  which  mutual  profit  could 
be  extracted.  It  is  universally  alleged  on  the 
anti-Semitic  side,  and  as  stoutly  denied  on  the 
other,  that  these  outsiders  got  themselves  fraudu- 
lently registered  as  clerks  of  the  Merchants  of  the 
First  Guild,  and  that  in  payment  for  this  privilege 
they  rendered  themselves  useful  to  their  pseudo 
employers — the  connection  helping  them  to  make 
money  with  which  to  buy  police  immunity.  The 
closest  inquiry  led  to  the  conclusion  that  such  a 
class  did  exist,  but  in  nothing  like  the  numbers 
popularly  given  in  Russia. 

It  is  almost  entirely  from  this  grade  of  unauthor- 
ized Jews,  so  to  speak,  that  the  usurers,  brothel 
keepers,  and  general  rich  scoundrels  about  whom 
the  Russians  talk  so  glibly,  have  arisen.  They 
owed  every  step  of  their  progress,  as  now  they  owe 
their  freedom  from  persecution,  wholly  to  the 
'  venality  of  the  Russian  police  and  officials. 

The  commercial  and  industrial  value  to  Russia 
of  this  change  in  the  treatment  of  the  Jews  was 
immediately  recognised.  The  Jewish  traders  and 
artisans  who  now  spread  themselves  over  the 
empire  at  once  multiplied  by  tens  or  scores  the 
traffic  of  the  districts  in  which  they  settled,  and  al- 
tered the  whole  scale  of  prices  in  entire  depart- 
ments of  manufacture.  Elderly  men  remember 
still  the  wonderful  effect  produced  in  small  places 
like  Podolsk  or  Riazan  by  the  advent  of  the  Jewish 
watchmaker  and  silversmith,  who  v;ould  actually 


"THE    C;OLDEN    AGE"  99 

repair  timepieces  to  make  them  go  instead  of  to 
secure  their  early  collapse  and  another  job — and 
whose  charges  bore  an  intelligible  relation  to  the 
labour  he  had  expended. 

The  great  and  almost  universal  cheapening  of 
prices  which  followed  this  pacific  dispersion  of 
Israel,  and  which  to  this  day  is  angrily  remembered 
l)y  the  native  Russian  tradesman,  is  of  service  as 
pointing  an  essential  difference  between  the  two 
races. 

The  Russian  tradesman  dislikes  exertion,  and 
has  almost  a  Turkish  contempt  for  hurry  or  eager- 
ness in  traffic!  He  has  no  notion  whatever  of  the 
theory  of  quick  returns.  His  idea  of  commerce  is 
to  mark  a  fifty  or  sixty  per  cent,  profit  on  his  goods, 
and  then  sit  down  and  drink  tea  and  play  draughts 
till  God  sends  him  a  customer. 

The  Jew,  on  the  other  hand,  comprehends  to  its 
utmost  the  value  of  turning  his  money  as  rapidly 
as  possible,  and  he  has  a  real  delight  in  activity.^ 
He  will  sell  each  week  at  a  profit  of  10  or  5  per 
cent,  a  stock  of  goods  as  big  as  that  which  cum- 
bers the  Russian's  store  for  six  months.  If  5  per 
cent,  is  not  forthcoming,  he  will  take  less,  down  to 
the  lowest  margin  which  will  effect  a  sale  and  re- 
turn something.  Prince  Demidoff  says  that  he 
will  even  sell  without  a  profit  at  all,  if  the  demand 

*  The  great  Pan-Slavist,  Aksakoff,  says  in  his  "  Investigation  of 
Trade  at  the  Ukraine  Fairs"  (St.  Petersburg,  1858),  "  while  a  rouble 
will  be  turned  over  twice  by  a  Russian  trader,  in  the  hands  of  a 
Jew  it  will  be  turned  over  five  times." 


loo  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

for  that  special  line  hangs  fire,  in  order  to  hasten 
off  and  embark  the  capital  in  a  more  promising 
venture. 

This  conception  of  business  did  not  endear  the 
Jewish  merchant  to  his  Russian  competitor.  Still 
less  did  the  amazing  energy  with  which  he  threw 
himself  into  his  wortc.  The  restless,  nervous,  tire- 
less industry  of  the  Russian  Hebrew  in  pursuit  of 
the  object  he  has  in  view  is  in  truth  one  of  the 
chief  objections  to  him.  He  sets  a  pace  which 
the  others  find  impossible. 

In  Kieff  a  very  intelligent  Russian  took  the 
trouble  to  explain  to  me  why  he  objected  to  the 
Jews.  There  were  a  numberof  commonplace  and 
familiar  reasons,  which  did  not  stick  in  my  memory. 
One,  however,  interested  me.  Formerly,  he  said, 
the  peasants  used  to  drive  into  town  on  market 
days  and  sell  their  produce  in  the  open  square. 
Then  it  was  possible  for  honest  citizens  to  sleep 
comfortably  in  their  beds  till  8  or  after,  and  then 
stroll  down  at  their  leisure  to  the  market,  after 
tneir  first  breakfast.  But  now  the  Jews  go  out 
(j)n  the  country  roads  for  miles,  at  4  or  5  in  the 
morning,  intercept  these  peasants  and  buy  the 
produce  as  it  lies  in  the  carts.  This  my  Russian 
friend  regarded  as  monstrous. 

As  I  have  said,  the  development  of  trade,  the 
opening  up  of  new  avenues  of  commerce,  the 
founding  of  new  industries,  and  the  cheapening  of 
articles  of  common  use  which  followed  this  partial 
emancipation    of  the    Jews,    was   of   inestimable 


•■THE    c;OLI)1:N    age"  ioi 

service  to  Russia.  It  is  impossible,  however,  to 
estimate  it  for  what  it  was  really  worth,  for  the 
reason  that  it  is,  from  every  economic  point  of 
view,  inextricably  mixed  up  with  the  Emancipa- 
tion of  the  Serfs. 

The  main  bulk  of  the  Hebrew  host  let  out  of 
the  Pale  by  Alexander  II  found  all  Russia  turned 
topsy-turvy  by  the  sudden  setting  free  of  these 
millions  of  serfs.  The  opinion  of  the  most 
thoughtful  and  best-informed  men  I  know  in 
Russia  is  that,  without  the  services  of  these  Jews 
as  middlemen,  as  cheap  producers,  and  as  hard 
workers,  the  emancipation  experiment  would  from 
the  start  have  been  a  failure. 

However  that  may  be,  it  is  the  wildest  and 
most  fanciful  nonsense  to  say  that  such  measure 
of  failure  as  is  apparent  now  is  due  in  any  way  to 
the  Jews.  Something  like  universal  bankruptcy 
exists  in  Russia  at  the  present  day,  undoubtedly. 
There  is  said  to  be  not  one  Land  Bank  in  the 
empire  which,  if  it  closed  its  affairs,  would  prove 
solvent.  The  Nobles'  Bank  is  so  sadly  the  other 
way  that  not  even  the  lottery  loan,  which  M. 
Vishnegradsky  has  authorised,  against  Russian 
law,  and  used  his  Ministerial  power  to  compel 
other  banks  to  take  up,  can  possibly  put  it  on  its 
feet.  But  the  Jews  are  not  the  creditors.  The 
multiplying  swarm  of  Grand  Dukes,  each  with  his 
two  millions  of  roubles  of  capital  ;  the  rapacious 
gang  of  officials  and  politicians,  of  whom  Ignatieff 
is  a  type  ;  the  vast  thousand-armed  devilfish  of  an 


I03  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

Orthodox  Church,  sucking  in  everything  portable 
from  every  quarter,  and  piHng  up  in  its  maw  Hter- 
ally  tons  of  gold  and  silver  ;  the  incapable  native 
producers  and  traders,  with  their  ceaseless  clamour 
for  higher  tariffs  ;  the  wildly-debauched  colonies  of 
spendthrift  aristocrats  in  Paris  and  on  the  Riviera 
— these  are  the  people  to  whom  Russia  owes  her 
.bankruptcy — not  the  Jew. 

Fortunately  this  assertion  need  not  rest  on  my 
own  authority.  Very  striking  proof  of  its  truth  is 
at  hand.  Since  the  present  famine  became  a 
reality  in  the  minds  of  the  governing  officials  in 
St.  Petersburg,  there  has  been  an  interesting 
relaxation  in  the  vigilance  of  the  Press  Censorship. 
Presumably  this  means  nothing  more  than  that  a 
general  demoralisation  has  spread  through  the 
departments,  as  a  result  of  the  crisis.  However 
that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  from  last  autumn  to 
the  present  time  the  newspapers  of  Russia  have 
printed  much  bolder  remarks  upon  public  affairs 
than  ever  before,  and  have  apparently  not  been  in 
any  way  molested.  The  three  articles  published 
in  the  St.  Petersburg  Viedomosti  on  the  i  ith,  15th 
and  25th  of  October,  1891,  to  the  substance  of 
which  I  desire  to  call  attention,  would  six  months 
earlier  have  brought  \h^' gendarmerie  down  upon 
the  office  within  an  hour  of  publication,  and  would 
probably  have  landed  the  editor  in  prison. 

These  articles  were  given  the  title  of  "  Lie  and 
Truth."  They  dealt  with  the  familiar  Russian 
assertion  that  the  Jew  "exploits"  the  moujik,  and 


"THE    (iOLDEN    AOE"  103 

is  alike  a  social  and  commercial  curse  to  Russia — 
and  dealt  with  it,  not  by  abstract  arguments  but 
by  the  production  of  solid  and  unanswerable 
statistical  evidence.  \ 

Too   much   importance   cannot  be   attached  to  \ 
this  proof  that  the  presence  of  Jews,  so  far  from  | 
injuring  the  moujik,  benefits  him.      His  prosperity  I 
is  much  greater  in  the  districts  containing  a  large/ 
Jewish  population  than   it   is   in  parts  where  xvd 
Hebrew  is  allowed  to  live.      Demonstration  of  tms 
is  furnished  by  the  figures  of  the  new  Government 
Peasant    Land    Bank,    whose    operations    extend 
over  the  15  provinces  of  the  Pale,  and  26  other 
provinces  of  the  interior.      The  Pale,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  crowded  with  Jews;  the  Interior  contains 
practically    no    Jews   at  all.     The  report  of  the 
Land  Bank  for  the  five  years   1885-9,  make  this 
remarkable    showing  as   to   the  condition  of  the 
Orthodox  peasantry  (the  only  persons  permitted 
to  buy  land)  in  the  two  contrasted  districts  : 

Land  bought  by  peasants  in  the  Pale         .     67.2  per  cent. 
Land  bought  by  peasants  in  the  Interior  .     32.8    „      „ 

Value  of  this  land  in  the  Pale     .         .         .     87.7  per  cent. 
Value  of  this  land  in  the  Interior       .         .     12.3    ,,      „ 

Of  the  total  moujik  population  in  these  41 
provinces,  the  Pale  contains  considerably  more 
than  half,  it  is  true,  but  the  prosperity  of  this 
section  as  compared  with  the  other  is  not  to  be 
accounted  for  in  that  way.  If  we  follow  the 
figures  further,  this  is  brought  out  very  clearly : 


I04  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

Peasant  population  of  Pale  (15  provinces)     58.3  per  cent. 
PeasantpopulationofInterior(26provinces)     41.7    „      „ 


Area  of  peasant  purchases  in  Pale 
By  population  ratio  should  be  . 
Excess 

Value  of  land  bought  in  the  Pale 
By  population  ratio  should  be   . 
Excess 


470,299  desiatines. 

407,463  »> 

62,836 

23,496,795  roubles. 
15,618,369 
7,878,426       „ 


There  can  be  no  answer  to  figures  like  these. 
They  show  us  that  in  the  dread  Pale,  where  the 
unhappy  Jews  are  huddled  together  in  the  most 
terrible  poverty  and  driven  to  the  most  desperate 
devices  to  keep  body  and  soul  together,  the 
Russian  peasants  have  two  million  sterling  more 
money  to  invest  in  land  on  their  own  account,  than 
have  the  moujiks  in  the  interior  where  no  Jew  is 
to  be  found.  If  this  indicates  "  exploitation  "  any- 
where, then  obviously  the  Jew  and  notthemoujik 
is  its  victim. 

The  Government  report  for  the  same  years, 
1885-9,  on  the  amount  of  unpaid  taxes  due  from 
the  peasantry,  is  quite  as  remarkable.  The  Land 
Bank  statistics  covered  only  26  of  the  interior 
provinces ;  these  official  tax-arrears  returns  em- 
brace all  Russia,  but  this  only  serves  to  exhibit 
the  condition  of  the  Orthodox  peasantry  of  the 
Pale  in  a  still  more  favourable  light : 

Unpaid  taxes  in  Pale  (15  provinces)  .    36,041,590  roubles. 
Unpaid  taxes  in  Interior(35  provinces,  237,984,768        „ 

Dehi  _per  aiptya  inside  Fa.\e        .         .         .  26  kopecks. 

Debt  per  capita  outside  Pale      ...  83         „ 


"THE    GOLDEN    AGE"  105 

Students  of  sociology  attach  great  importance  to 
statistics  based  upon  the  death  rate.  In  a  country 
Hke  Russia,  and  among  a  people  like  the  moujiks, 
the  question  of  health  and  of  life  itself  is  most 
intimately  connected  with  that  of  material  pros- 
perity. Tried  by  this  test,  then,  we  secure  much 
the  same  results.  The  Vicdoinosti  quotes  only 
the  returns  for  the  three  years  1884-6.  They 
show  that  the  death  rate  in  the  35  interior  pro- 
vinces where  there  are  no  Jews  was  35.6  per 
thousand,  whereas  inside  the  Pale  it  was  only 
29.8. 

Fully  as  interesting,  from  another  point  of  view, 
are  the  statistics  relating  to  crime.  Enough  has 
been  said  about  the  Pale  to  indicate  that  there,  if 
anywhere  under  the  sun,  the  Jew  might  feel  justi- 
fied in  settincr  all  laws,  human  and  divine,  at 
defiance.  Yet  the  records  of  these  three  sample 
provinces  of  the  Pale  show  that  even  where  the 
Jew  is  poorest,  most  ignorant,  most  oppressed,  he/ 
still  behaves  himself  better  than  his  Russiaiy 
neitrhbours  : 

Town  population  Province  of  Vilna. 

Jews        .     66.3  per  cent.      .      Jewish  criminals     .     52.1. 
All  others     33.8    „       ,,         .      Other  „  .     47.9. 

'I'oivn  population  Proinncc  of  Vitebsk. 

Jews         .     60.2  per  cent.      .      Jewish  criminals     .     49. 
All  others     39.8    „       „  .      Other  „  •     5i- 

Toiv7i  population  Province  of  Kovno. 

Jews         .     80.4  per  cent.  Jewish  criminals    .     50.1. 

All  others     19.6    „       „  .       Other  ,  .     49.9. 


io6  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

To  get  the  full  significance  of  these  figures,  it 
must  be  kept  in  mind  that  a  thousand  actions 
which  the  Russian  himself  is  entitled  to  perform 
are  crimes  when  done  by  a  Russian  Jew.  Even 
praying  in  an  unauthorised  synagogue  puts  a  man 
in  the  criminal  classes — certainly  would  enrol  him 
in  one  of  the  tables  of  Jewish  offenders  quoted 
above.  There  are  no  Jewish  judges,  no  Jewish 
juries,  no  Jewish  policemen.  To  say  the  least, 
we  may  be  sure  that  the  statistics  do  not  err  on 
the  side  of  leniency  to  the  Jew. 

The  sober  truth  is,  that  nobody  in  Russia  has 
dreamed  of  paying  any  debt  to  a  Jewish  trader  or 
artisan  these  eighteen  months.  The  sums  due 
throughout  the  Empire  to  individual  Hebrews 
who  have  been  driven  out  of  their  homes,  no 
kopeck  of  which  they  can  ever  hope  to  see,  would 
in  the  aggregate  mount  up  to  many  millions. 
Thus  at  every  step  last  summer  I  encountered  or 
heard  of  some  respectable  head  of  a  family,  who 
could  have  gone  away  in  relative  comfort  if  his 
outstanding  credits  had  been  available  or  negoti- 
able, but  who  in  reality  needed  charity  to  assist 
him  and  his  household  to  the  frontier.  Yet  it  is 
they  who  are  denounced  as  "exploiters"  of  the 
Russians ! 

Mit  it  is  important  not  to  forget  that  we  are 
studying  a  "golden  age." 

TXJdJo  the  reign  of  Alexander  II,  the  rich  Jew 
wa§£r^tically  unknown  in  Russia.    The  Hebrew 


"THE    GOLDEN   AGE"  107 

doctors  and  dentists  in  St.  Petersburg  were  pros- 
perous, and  here  and  there  throughout  the  empire 
some  merchant  more  daring  or  more  useful  to  the 
police  than  the  others  had  managed  to  lift  himself 
out  of  the  slough  of  penury  which  engulfed  his 
race.  These  were  very  few  in  number,  however, 
and  are  now  hardly  remembered. 

But  in  the  new  order  of  thiui^s  after  the  Crim( 
there  was  room  and  scope  for  the  millionaire  Israel 
ite.  Apparently  the  fortunes  of  those  who  noA 
climbed  the  ladder  of  finance  and  attracted  the  at^ 
tention  of  all  Russia  were  at  the  time  much  exasf- 
gerated.  The  load  of  blackmail  which  they  had 
to  carry  was  too  heavy  and  too  continuous  in  its 
pressure  to  make  the  amassing  of  really  great 
wealth  possible.  But,  undoubtedly,  WarschofTsky, 
Horwitz,  and  the  elder  Poliakoff  became  rich  and 
powerful  capitalists.  I  mention  these  names  be- 
cause they  belong  to  a  little  family  group,  the  char- 
acter and  fortunes  of  which  played  an  important 
part  in  the  tragic  sequel.  Intermarriages  among 
their  children  bound  these  three  strong  and  self- 
made  men  together.  It  was  the  era  of  railway  build- 
ing, and  they,  by  superior  shrewdness  and  energy, 
secured  the  most  important  contracts  all  over  the 
empire.  To  this  day,  when  an  accident  happens 
on  a  Russian  railroad  from  bad  rails,  defective 
roadbed,  or  rotten  bridge,  the  Russian  always 
ascribes  it  to  the  Jewish  contractors. 

It  does  not  concern  our  inquiry  to  dwell  upon 
the  careers  of  these  great  business  and  building 


THE   NEW   EXODUS 

magnates.  Probably  they  were  no  better  and  no 
worse  than  the  active,  aggressive,  strong-handed 
men  who  in  every  new  and  undeveloped  country 
come  to  the  front,  carry  through  big  constructive 
projects,  and  reap  the  rewards.  The  building  of 
our  own  Pacific  road  produced  just  this  type  of 
men  and  much  the  same  kind  of  questionable 
methods.  The  difference  was  that  in  the  United 
ates  the.JIredit_Mobilier  exposure  and  Congres- 
ional  interference  made  every  detail  of  the  scan- 
al  public  property.  In  Russia  many  Ministers 
and  officials  and  even  princes  of  the  blood  waxed 
wealthy  side  by  side  with  the  railway  contractors, 
but  there  was  never  a  protest  raised  by  anybody. 

Smaller  Jewish  contractors  grew  up  under  the 
shadow  of  these  great  men,  and  thrived  by  inti- 
mate relations  with  the  officials.  The  collusion 
was  notorious.  I  have  already  spoken  of  Igna- 
tieff,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  shared  with  the 
Vannitsa  Jew,  Michaelowitz,  the  plunder  of  the 
Kotchubey  estates.  He  was  hand  in  glove  with 
all  these  Hebrew  contractors,  who,  by  Ministerial 
favour  and  even  higher  influences,  gradually  got 
control  of  the  public  works.  What  was  true  of 
him  was  true  of  practically  every  other  Russian 
politician  and  office-holder  of  importance.  We 
have  seen  how,  in  the  days  of  Catherine,  Paul,  and 
/Nicholas,  the  poor  Jews  were  treated  by  the 
/Government  as  a  kind  of  milch  cow.  The  same 
idea  was  still  in  force,  only  it  was  the  officials  who 
had  learned  now  to  create  and  then  exploit  rich 


"THK  (;()i,i)i;x  a(;e"  109 

Jews  for  their  own  personal  benefit,  at  the  expense 
of  the  country  at  large. 

These  things  came  to  a  climax   in  the  Russo^ 
Turkish    war   of    jSyy-S.     Here   again   a  dozer/ 
volumes    could    be   written    upon  what  must  be 
condensed  into  a  few  paragraphs. 

Briefly,  that  war  was  a  veritable  debauch  of 
corruption.  Its  very  inception  was  a  cold-blooded 
swindle.  Ignatieff,  as  Minister  to  Constantinople, 
sedulously  sent  home  lying  reports  about  Turkey's 
weakness,  the  disorganisation  of  her  army  and 
finances,  and  her  utter  inability  to  defend  herself 
at  any  point.  He  as  untiringly  used  every  means 
in  his  power  to  stir  up  the  Balkans  to  a  point 
where  Russian  interference  should  seem  to  have 
become  a  matter  of  national  honour  and  Imperial 
dignity.  So  enthusiastically  was  he  backed  by  the 
whole  official  hierarchy — each  member  keenly 
scenting  plunder  in  the  air — that  the  Czar  was  at 
last  reluctantly  forced  across  the  Rubicon.  War 
was  declared. 

In  Russia  everything  is  done  by  contract — war 
included.  What  happened  now  simply  staggers 
the  imagination.  Ten  thousand  civilian  officials 
wrestled  with  ten  other  thousand  army  dignitaries 
for  their  share  of  the  spoils.  Minister  struggled 
against  General,  Mayor  hurled  himself  in  fierce 
rivalry  with  Colonel.  As  a  result,  the  army  was 
so  heartlessly  and  completely  robbed  by  every  one 
that  it  barely  missed  being  starved  out  of  existence  ; 
indeed,  Russia  would  have  been  whipped  to  her 


no  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

knees  if  thievery  and  bribe-taking  had  not  been 
almost  as  prevalent  among  the  Turkish  Pashas  as 
well. 

In  this  wild  rush  for  booty  the  luckless  Jew  was 

literally  overwhelmed  by  superior  Muscovite  num- 

I  bers.      Like  little  Jakey,  in  the  whimsical  story  of 

Uhe  synagogue  being^tampeded  by  a  cry  at  the 

door  of  "job  lots!"  he  was  killed  in  the  deadly 

crush. 

The  contracting  machinery  in  Russia  had  been 
invented  by  the  Jews  and  was  in  their  hands. 
The  three  Hebrew  capitalists  I  have  mentioned, 
with  numbers  of  their  less  powerful  co-religionists, 
secured  most  of  the  contracts  for  supplies,  horses, 
munitions.  &c.,  at  the  outset.  But  the  official 
appetite  had  all  at  once  grown  so  savage  and 
ravenous  that  they  could  not  for  a  moment  hold 
their  own  against  it.  They  would  themselves 
have  been  eaten  had  they  not  thrown  everything 
else  to  the  monster.  Every  Russian  will  tell  you 
that  the  late  Grand  Duke  Nicholas,  brother  to  the 
Czar  and  Commander-in-Chief,  stole  enough  for 
his  own  purse  to  have  fed  an  army  corps  during  the 
campaign,  though  he  is  said  to  have  died  last  year 
heavily  in  debt.  Thousands  of  officers  only  less 
splendid  in  rank  took  only  a  smaller  share.  The 
present  Czar,  then  heir-apparent,  was  so  indignant 
at  this  shameless  wholesale  robbery  that  he  com- 
plained formally  to  his  father,  and  an  inquiry  was 
ordered.  The  culprits  were  too  lofty  in  rank  to 
be  exposed.     The  inquiry  came  to  nothing. 


"THE    (iOLUEN    A(;E"  hi 

Doubtless  the  Jewish  contractors  had  embarked 
upon  the  business  with  confidence  that  at  least  a 
proportion  of  the  spoils  would  be  theirs.  They 
made  a  cruel  mistake.  Not  only  were  profits 
denied  them — they  did  not  get  back  even  the  prin- 
cipal ot"  their  investment.  They  were  robbed 
openly  and  without  mercy.  Warschoffsky  was 
broken  mentally  as  well  as  financially  by  this 
spoliation,  and  hanged  himself.  The  older  Polia- 
koff,  going  to  his  funeral,  fell  dead  with  heart 
disease  in  the  house  of  mourning. 

In  this  sinister  fashion  ended  the  "golden  age!" 


CHAPTER   VII 

IGXATIEFF  AXD   THE    MAY   LAWS 

The  last  thino-  which  foreigners  who  study  the 
contemporary  history  of  a  country  get  to  under- 
stand is  the  part  played  in  the  making  of  that 
history  by  powerful  journalists.  No  Englishman, 
for  example,  comprehends  in  the  least  the  influence 
upon  the  Amejcieaa-ewl  war  exerted  by  editor- 

iXpoliticians  lik£__Horace  Greeley  and  Thurlow 
^Weed.  In  the  same  way,  it  is  very  difficult  for 
any  one  outside  of  England  to  realise  how  largely 
the  events  of  the  past  decade  in  these  islands  have 
be^n~affected,  mischievously  for  the  most  part,  by 
Mj\_WillIam  T.  Stead. 

A  Russian  newspaper  man,  of  whom  very  few 
people  in  Russia  itself,  and  practically  none  at  all 
outside,  have  heard,  enters  our  story  at  this  point, 
and  from  the  moment  of  his  debut  becomes  an 
important  factor  in  its  tragic  development.  I  al- 
Bude  to  Mr.  Suvorin,  the  owner  and  editor  of  the 
Wovoe  Vremya . 
r  A  most  characteristic  anecdote  is  told  of  the 
manner  in  which  he  first  became  interested  in  the 
Jewish  question.  M.  Suvorin  was  a  journalist  and 
popular  writer  o{  feui lie  tons  for  the  most  liberal 


IGNATIEFF   AND   THE    MAY    LAWS  113 

papers  in  that  era  of  comparative  Liberalism  in 
Russia,  that  is  to  say,  from  1865  to  1875.  Then 
a  distressing  domestic  tragedy  broke  down  his 
working  power,  and  forced  him  for  a  time  into  re- 
tirement. He  had  so  far  emerged  from  this,  when 
the  Russo-Turkish  war  came  in  1877,  as  to  have 
under  his  control  an  obscure  and  unremunerative 
paper.  Excited  by  the  rumours  of  great  fortunes 
being  made  at  the  seat  of  war,  he  went  down  to 
Bucharest  in  company  with  an  inventor,  even 
poorer  than  himself,  but  who  had  some  novel  sort 
of  copper  kettle  to  sell,  Suvorin  conceived  the 
plan  of  enriching  himself  by  getting  this  kettle 
adopted  for  use  in  the  camps  of  the  Russian 
Army,  and  to  effect  this  he  sought  an  interview 
with  Samuel  Poliakoff,  the  great  Jewish  contractor, 
then  in  Bucharest.  But  Poliakoff,  harassed  and 
worried  by  incessant  conflict  with  the  bigger 
Russian  robbers,  perhaps  already  foreseeing  the 
ruin  which  was  to  overtake  him  and  his  colleagues, 
was  in  no  mood  to  trifle  with  this  unknown  and 
threadbare  adventurer.  He  brusquely  sent  Su- 
vorin about  his  business. 

Suvorin  returned  to  St.  Petersburof  with  his 
kettles,  and  began  attacking  Poliakoff  in  his  paper. 
His  rage,  however,  was  too  great  to  appease  itself 
upon  any  one  man,  even  though  that  man  were 
the  millionaire  Poliakoff.  It  spread  itself  out  to 
embrace  the  Jews  of  Russia.  At  another  time  the 
police  would  have  made  short  work  with  unauthor- 
ised journalism  of  this  sort.      But  it  chanced  just 

H 


114  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

then  to  play  into  the  hands  of  the  most  influen- 
tial man  in  Russia — General  Nicholas  Paulovitch 
Ignatieff. 

The  Jews  in  Russia  always  mention  this  man's 
name  under  their  breath  and  with  a  shudder 
of  hatred.  More  often  he  is  not  mentioned  by 
name  at  all,  but  designated  with  a  word  which 
means  "The  Infamous."  I  have  been  told  by 
others  that  the  Jews  exaggerate  Ignatieff 's  power 
for  harm  to  them,  and  that  he  has  by  no  means  so 
fully  earned  their  hatred  as  they  imagine.  Upon 
this,  of  course,  I  cannot  pretend  to  pass.  I  know 
only  that  they  universally  ascribe  to  his  malice, 
greed,  and  inhuman  wickedness  and  cruelty  the 
sum  of  their  miseries,  and  that  they  trace  the 
whole  painful  record  of  their  persecutions  and 
woes  since  1877  by  references  to  the  details  of  his 
career. 

I    have  shown    in    the  preceding   chapter   the 

motives  Ignatieff  had  for  crippling  and  destroying 

'the  group  of  great  Jewish  contractors.  Apparently 

(cognate  motives  now  led  him  to  throw  the  pro- 

tectmg  roaiUle  of  his  power  over  Suvorin,  and  to 

give  his  support  to  the  anti-Jewish  crusade  of  the 

N^voe   Vremya.     From  that  moment  the  Novoe 

Vremya  became  an  important  paper.     After  the 

suppression    of  the    Golos,   in   1882,  it   took    the 

position  it  has  since  held  as  the  most  influential 

journal  in    St.    Petersburg,   or  in    Russia.     And 

Suvorin  has  grown  now  to  be  a  rich  man. 

The  rise  of  the  Judenhetze  in    Prussia  at  this 


IGNATIEFF   AND   THE    MAY  LAWS  115 

particular  time  (1879)  was  of  tremendous  assist- 
ance to  lornatieff  and  Suvorin.  It  is  the  habit  to 
assume  that  this  agitation  in  North  Germany  was 
the  beginning  of  the  whole  thing,  and  that  tlie" 
fever  of  persecution  only  spread  over~"the  border 
into  Russia  after  it  had  become  epidemic  from 
Berlin  to  Pomerania.  So  admirable  an  authority 
as  Dr.  Wilhelm  Mliller  takes  this  view."*  But  the 
facts  are  the  other  way.  The  Novoe  Vreniya  had 
been  attacking  the  Jews  for  months" before  the 
first  outbreak  of  feeling  in  Germany,"ah"d  Ignatieff, 
now  become  Governor  of  Nijni  Novgorod,  was 
openly  against  the  Jews.  \ 

The  German  riots  didThowever,  point  the  means 
to  a  practical  demonstration  of  anti-Semitism  in 
Russia.  Up  to  this  time,  such  unhappiness  as 
the  Jew  in  Russia  had  suffered  had  come  from 
maladministration,  from  bad  laws,  rapacious  and 
brutal  officials,  and  the  jealousy  of  Christian  guilds 
of  traders  or  artisans.  He  had  cfot  alonor  well 
enough  with  the  Russian  people  themselves.  I 
do  not  pretend  that  he  was  beloved,  but  he  had 
not  been  exposed  to  popular  insult  and  violence. 
Indeed,  as  has  been  explained  heretofore,  he  quite 
generally  represented,  in  the  minds  of  the  Russian 
masses,  cheap  prices  for  goods  and  an  industrious 
distribution  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  Therefore, 
no  one  had  thoucjht  of  beatin"-  him  or  burninsf 
down  his  house. 

*  The  annual  publication  "  Politische  Geschichte  der  (iegen- 
Nwart.''     By  Wilhelm  Muller,  Professor  in  Tubingen. 


ii6  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

But  now,  all  at  once,  anti-Jewish  riots  began  in 
Russia.  It  was  interesting  to  note  that  they  were 
all  in  Southern  Russia,  a  section  far  remote  from 
\German  influence,  jln^ch.  case  they  were  in 
towns  containing  a  large  population  of  Greek 
stevedores  and  labourers,  and  these  Greeks  had  a 
)ractical  monopoly  of  the  violence.  This  was  in 
itself  significant.  But  then  it  was  discovered  that 
a  band  of  young  men  from  St.  Petersburg — young 
students,  clerks,  and  ne'er-do-wells  generally — was 
travelling  about  the  country,  and  invariably  ap- 
peared in  a  town  a  day  or  so  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  riot.  These  agetits  provocateur  did  their 
work  too  clumsily.  They  grew  inflated  by  their 
success,  and  appeared  on  the  streets  blowing 
whistles,  marching  in  step,  and  otherwise  calling 
attention  to  their  organisation. 

The  scandal  became  so  obvious  that  the  Chris- 
tian merchants  of  Moscow  signed  a  protest  against 
it.  I  have  already  mentioned  the  fact  that  M. 
Alexeieff,  the  present  Jew-baiting  Mayor  of 
Moscow,  headed  the  list  of  signatures.  This 
protest,  being  intrusted  to  Dr.  Bunge,  a  fair  and 
honourable  man,  then  Minister  of  Finance,  was 
shown  to  the  Czar  in  person,  along  with  convincing 
proofs  as  to  the  bogus  character  of  these  riots.  It 
is  believed  to  have  been  due  to  direct  Imperial 
interference  that  they  thereupon  came  suddenly  to 
a  stop. 

The  Czar  Alexander  II,  now  in  the  sixties, 
saw  his  reign  closing  in   disaster,  confusion,  and 


IGNATIEFF  AND    THE    MAY    EAWS  117 

dishonour.  The  hideous  carnival  of  corruption 
which  had  paralysed  his  armies  during  the  recent 
war,  and  so  well-nigh  brought  them  to  defeat,  dis- 
heartened him.  Individually,  here  and  there,  as 
in  the  case  of  these  fraudulent  riots,  he  could 
intervene  on  the  side  of  decency.  But  his  utmost 
efforts  could  effect  no  more  than  might  a  cup  of 
water  dashed  against  a  burning  house.  Small 
wonder,  then,  that  he  ceased  to  try. 

Misgovern ment,  wholesale  robbery,  over-taxa- 
tion, the  failure  of  the  emancipated  moujiks  to 
prosper  under  the  double  burden  of  their  own 
ignorant  indolence  and  the  stupid  greed  of  the 
landed  classes — in  a  word,  the  blight  of  barbarism,! 
had  created  widespread  cons'piracies  of  revolt.  \ 
Society  was  honeycombed  with  murder  clubs  and 
anarchist  associations.  The  Government  of  the 
"  Liberator "  Czar  hardened  into  a  despotism  of 
the  most  malevolent  type.  In  the  years  of 
1879-80  not  less  than  60,000  Russian  subjects 
were  exiled  to  Siberia  "  by  administrative  order" 
without  any  trial  whatever.* 

It  may  be  well  believed  that  the  Czar  himself 
grew  utterly  despondent.  He  had  tried  to  do 
such  great  things — with  this  squalid  and  evil 
result!  Most  of  all — worst  of  all — he  came  to 
doubt  the  value  of  having^  striven  to  educate  his 
people.  The  disaffection  all  came  from  the  edu- 
cated classes.  To  this  day  Russia  offers  the 
grotesque   paradox   of  a  country   spending  great 

*  Dr.  Wilhclm  Miillcr. 


ii8  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

ysums  upon  universities  and  higher  schools,  a  large 
'proportion  of  the  graduates  from  which  are  sent 
in  chains  to  Siberia  shortly  after  their  education 
has  been  completed.  But  in  those  fateful  years 
j3ractically  every  educated  Russian  was  a  suspect. 
Naturally  a  state  of  affairs  in  which  education 
is  a  ground  for  suspicion  must  have  seriously 
affected  the  Jews.  They  were  pre-eminently  an 
educated  class  in  Russia,  for  reasons  which  have 
been  heretofore  discussed.  It  is  said  that  the 
Czar  came  to  believe  that  the  Nihilist  movement 
drew  its  chief  inspiration  and  instruments  from  the 
Jews.  Obviously  this  belief  would  have  been 
fostered  by  all  the  officials  of  the  Ignatieff  stamp 
who  surrounded  him,  and  it  was  openly  promul- 
gated in  the  Novoe  Vremya. 

There  seems  to  have  been  extremely  slight 
ground  for  this  belief.  Mloditzki,  who  attempted 
the  life  of  Gen.  Melikoff,  was  a  baptized  Jew,  that  is, 
a  Hebrew  who  had  formally  accepted  Christianity. 
One  of  the  heroines  of  the  conspiracy  which  finally 
accomplished  its  purpose  was  Jessy  Helfmann,* 
the  daughter  of  Jewish  parents,  but  herself  a  pro- 
fessed freethinker.  Aaron  Zundelevic,  the  brave 
founder  of  the  "  secret  press  "  in  St.  Petersburg, 
who  learned  the  compositor's  trade  and  taught  it 
to  four  companions  for  this  sole  purpose,  was  the 
son  of  a  little  Jewish  shopkeeper  in  Wilna.t  This 
almost  exhausts  the  list. 

*  "Underground  Russia."  By  Stepniak.  Page  112.  London:  i8c)3_ 
t  Ibid.,  page  202. 


IGNATIEFF  AND    THE    MAY    LAWS  119 

In  fact,  the  Jew  does  not  lend  himself  to  the  / 
notion  of  conspiracy.  In  every  country  he  has 
been  the  patient,  long-suffering,  even  servile  non- 
resistant,  never  the  rebel.  All  over  Russia  I  was 
struck  by  the  absence  of  political  feeling  in  the 
talk  of  representative  Hebrews.  I  never  met  one 
in  whose  presence  I  could  feel,  "  Here  is  a  man 
who  would  give  money  to  the  Nihilists."  Of 
course  this  proves  nothing,  in  Russia  more  than 
anywhere  else  the  desperate  man  keeps  anxious 
guard  over  his  speech,  his  face,  his  demeanour, 
But  the  three  Nihilists  of  Jewish  blood  whom 
have  mentioned  were  revolutionists  because  the 
were  Russians ;  no  hint  is  given  anywhere  tha 
they  took  up  arms  to  avenge  the  sufferings  of  their 
Hebrew  brethren.  No  suggestion  is  ever  heard 
of  even  the  possibility  of  conspiracy  or  revolt 
among  the  Jews  on  account  of  Jewish  wrongs 
Their  fault  is  tn^hr  nvrr  dnrilr  nnd  tnn  nii^i"l  • 
sively  lo 

fri;he"same,  Nihilism  gave  the  Jews  a  bad 
name.  When  the  terrible  blow  of  March  13, 
1 88 1,  was  struck,  an  insidious  wdiisper  about  a 
Jewish  murder  plot  crept  all  over  Russia  in  the 
wake  of  the  dreadful  first  news.  Within  six  weeks 
the  Jewish  quarter  of  Elizabethgrad  was  sacked 
and  burned,  and  the  reign  of  terror  inaugurated 
which  was  to  destroy  thousands  of  homes,  redJ^ 
100,000  Jews  to  poverty,  and  stain  the  liistory  oi\ 
the  century  with  incredible  records  of  rapine  and/ 
savagery. 


I20  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

The  temptation  to  linger  upon  the  tragedy  of 
the  Czar's  assassination,  concerning  which  such 
strange  and  sinister  stories  are  afloat  in  Russia,  is 
very  great.  And  though  it  is  only  in  its  effects 
that  it  belongs  within  the  proper  scope  of  our 
inquiry,  a  brief  glance  at  some  of  the  surrounding 
circumstances  will  be  of  use. 

It  is  well  known,  of  course,  that  General  Gourko, 
General  Drenteln,  and  other  police  and  palace 
oflicials  knew  all  about  the  plot  to  blow  up  the 
Winter  Palace  for  months  before  the  explosion 
came.  That  was  clearly  demonstrated  in  the  in- 
vestigation. 1 1  was  proved  that  detailed  information 
as  to  the  conspiracy  and  its  purposes  and  methods 
had  been  put  into  their  hands  in  November  of  1 879. 
The  explosion,  which  killed  and  maimed  so  many 
of  the  Finnish  guard  and  the  servants,  and  which 
only  missed  destroying  the  whole  Imperial  family 
by  the  accident  of  dinner  being  kept  waiting  for  a 
tardy  guest,  came  in  February  of  1880. 

The  discovery  that  the  very  men  who  were 
ruling  Russia  with  Oriental  ferocity,  in  the  name 
of  "  law  and  order,"  were  capable  of  this  mys- 
terious negligence,  or  criminal  connivance — one 
hardly  knows  to  this  day  what  to  call  it — 
impelled  the  Czar  to  energetic  action.  He 
abolished  the  office  of  Governor  General  of  St. 
Petersburg,  which  Gourko  had  held,  and  installed 
\iGen.  Loris  Melikoff  as  a  kind  of  military  dictator, 
\Drenteln,  the  Chief  of  Police;  Qount  Tolstoi,  the 
uMinister  of  Education,  and  other  representatives 


KIXATIEFF   AND    THE    MAY    LAWS  121 

of  the  venal  and  stupid  despotism  which  had 
grown  up  since  the  war,  were  thrown  out  of 
office,  and  men  of  a  different  type,  or  at  least 
governed  by  a  different  spirit,  took  their  places. 

There  was  a  year  of  Melikoffs  Government, 
To  the  foreign  student,  who  looks  back  now  over 
the  reforms  actually  put  into  operation,  to  say 
nothing  of  those  proposed  and  believed  to  have 
been  contemplated,  the  period  seems  one  of  unique 
good  feeling,  and  of  unparalleled  efforts  to  abate 
the  evils  of  which  Russians  justly  complained. 
Those  who  lived  through  this  time  in  Russia  do 
not  think  so  highly  of  it.  They  say  that  no  doubt 
the  intentions  in  high  quarters  were  excellent. 
But  the  30,000  ofiicials  charged  with  interpreting 
these  intentions  throughout  the  Empire  simVly 
ignored  them  and  went  on  in  the  same  old  brutV 
and  arbitrary  rut.  General  Ignatieff  was  Governo 
at  Nijni  Novgorod.  There  were  thirty  othe 
Governors  like  him  in  as  many  other  gubernia 
They  did  practically  as  they  pleased,  and  what 
pleased  them  most  was  to  neutralise  everything/ 
which  the  hated  Armenian,  Loris  Melikoff,  essayea 
to  do.  / 

There  came  rumours  at  last  that  the  Czar,  under 
Melikoffs  inspiration,  was  about  to  grant  a  Con- 
stitution. What  purports  to  be  a  copy  of  this 
proposed  instrument  has  since  been  published. 
Whether  it  is  authentic  or  not,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  a  circumstantial  statement  as  to  the  Czar's 
intention  to  issue  some  such  decree   had  spread 


122  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

throuofhout  the  hig-her  official  circles.  Itwasev^en 
declared  that  the  new  Constitution  had  been  signed 
and  was  to  be  promulgated  on  March  14,  1881. 

On  March  13  the  Czar  was  blown  to  pieces  by 
dynamite  bombs. 

The  most  that  is  charged  in  conversation  in 
Russia  is  that  the  officials  responsible  for  the 
safety  of  the  Czar  knew  all  about  the  fatal  con- 
spiracy, just  as  a  year  before  they  had  been 
cognizant  of  the  Winter  Palace  plot ;  that  they 
could  have  prevented  the  tragedy  by  continuing 
the  simplest  of  precautions,  and  that,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  mutinous  and  disaffected 
aristocrats  and  bureaucrats,  they  chose  a  strangely 
opportune  day  for  the  relaxation  of  these  precau- 
tions. This  much  can  be  said  fairly  enough, 
because  there  was  a  public,  or  semi-public,  trial 
of  some  of  these  delinquent  police  officials. 
They  were  found  guilty  of  negligence  which  had 
contributed  to  the  death  of  the  Czar,  and  were 
sentenced  to  three  years  residence  in  tJie pleasant 
northern  town  of  Archangel! 

But  back  of  what  is  said  lies  a  world  of  terrible 
hints  and  suggestions.  It  is  not  for  me  to  attempt 
to  reduce  them  to  language.  They  may,  indeed, 
have  no  tangible  basis  in  fact.  But  they  have 
taken  hold  of  men's  minds  in  Russia,  and  they 
more  than  vaguely  outline  in  the  public  conscious- 
ness a  picture  of  perfidious  murder  more  awful 
even  than  that  of  the  Czar's  mad  grandfather, 
Paul. 


IGNATIEFF  AND    THE    MA\'    LAWS  123 

Be  that  as  it  may,  the  enemies  of  MeUkoft'  and 
of  the  murdered  Czar's  HberaHsing  experiments 
came  at  once  into  power.  It  is  true  that  Mehkoff 
Hngered  along  in  his  anomalous  post  of  dictator 
for  a  brief  period,  and  that  the  new  Czar  seemed 
for  a  little  to  be  attracted  by  the  notion  of  attempt- 
ing still  further  reforms.  But  any  expectations 
built  upon  this  apparent  hesitation  were  short-lived 
enough.  Ignatieff  had  hastened  to  St.  Petersburg 
at  the  news  of  the  assassination,  and  was  promptly 
made  Minister  of  Domains.  Two  months  there- 
after he  and  his  group  had  achieved  a  complete 
conquest.  Melikoff  had  been  driven  out  in  dis- 
grace and  exile,  and  Ignatieff  was  in  his  place. 

Many  other  names  might  be  cited  of  men  whom 
the  old  Czar  distrusted  or  despised,  and  whom  he 
had  striven  to  deprive  of  iniiuence  in  the  State, 
who  now  mounted  swiftly  into  prominence  and 
power  once  more.  Gen.  Gourko,  for  example, 
whose  dismissal  we  noted  above,  was  made  Gov- 
ernor General  of  Poland.  Drenteln,  who  had 
shared  with  Gourko  the  odium  of  the  Winter 
Palace  explosion  scandal,  was  given  the  fat  berth 
of  Governor  General  at  Kieff.  But  the  chief  of 
the  former  suspects  who  now  assumed  control,  and 
the  one  who  gave  character  to  the  whole  painful 
episode,  was  Ignatieff,  the  new  Minister  of  the 
Interior. 

Count  Ignatieff  was  at  this  time  in  his  fiftieth 
year.  He  had  led  a  life  of  adventure  and  brilliant 
achievement  in  the  far  East,  and  in  his  younger 


124  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

days,  before  he  created  a  new  order  of  reputation 
in  diplomacy  and  politics,  had  enjoyed  in  Russia  a 
celebrity  not  unlike  that  of  the  late  Col.  Burnaby 
in  England.  He  was  of  noble  birth,  a  millionaire, 
a  scholarly  gentleman  of  great  linguistic  attain- 
ments and  delightful  manners,  and  the  husband  of 
one  of  the  ablest  and  most  fascinating  ladies  in  all 
Russia.  He  was  a  statesman  of  v/idespread,  cos- 
mopolitan acquaintances  and  connections.  He 
had  seen  and  studied  most  of  the  nations  of  the 
earth.  Even  his  enemies  admitted  his  higrh 
abilities.  His  industry  and  energy  were  beyond 
those  of  any  other  Russian  in  public  life. 

It  might  well  be  thought  that  such  a  man,  step- 
ping into  the  foremost  post  in  the  empire  at  the 
beginning  of  a  new  reign,  would  have  before  him  a 
long,  distinguished,  and  lofty  career.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  was  brusquely,  almost  contemptuously, 
put  out  of  office  after  a  short  thirteen  months. 

Ignatieff — long  since  christened  **  The  Father 
of  Lies  " — has  industriously  circulated  the  story 
that  he  retired  because  the  Czar  failed  to  approve 
his  project  of  reviving  the  ancient  Zeinsty  Sobory, 
a  kind  of  constituent  assembly,  or  States  General, 
which  Peter  the  Great  destroyed.  This  pleasant 
tale  has  come  to  be  generally  credited,  and  has 
even,  in  certain  weak-minded  quarters,  cast  a  sort 
of  halo  of  liberalism  around  Ignatieff's  foxlike 
head.  The  truth  is  that  Ignatieff  would  have  as 
readily  cut  off  his  hand  as  committed  himself  to 
any  abstract  governmental  scheme,  of   whatever 


IGNATIEFF    AND     THE    MAY    EAWS  125 

nature,  which  ran  the  slightest  risk  of  encounter- 
ing the  Imperial  disfavour. 

It  was  not  the  Zenisty  Sobory  project  which 
caused  Ignatieff's  downfall.  He  was  disgraced 
because  unanswerable  proof  was  brought  to  the 
Czar  that  he  was  using  the  persecution  of  the  Jews 
to  extort  blackmail,  and  that  he  had  taken  ad-  1 
vantage  of  his  position  to  exempt  his  own  estates! 
from  the  disastrous  effects  of  the  May  Laws,  while 
those  of  the  Imperial  family  suffered. 

The  Jews  themselves  were  never  under  any 
illusions  as  to  the  motives  of  their  tormentors. 
The  first  great  anti-Semite  riot  at  Elizabethgrad, 
in  April  1881,  only  preceded  by  a  day  or  two 
Ignatieff's  accession  to  office,  and  very  shortly 
after  came  the  terrible  fires  and  looting  at  Kieff, 
where  2000  Jews  had  the  roofs  burned  over  their 
heads.  It  was  clear  enough  that  a  definite  purpose 
underlay  these  outbreaks  and  inspired  the  attacks 
in  the  Novoe  Vreiuya.  There  cculd  be  but  one 
explanation  of  Ignatieff's  attitude. 

If  there  had  been  any  doubt,  his  circular  rescript 
to  the  Provincial  Governors  in  September  1881, 
must  have  cleared  it  away,  In  this  he  disclosed 
his  whole  line  of  campaign.  "While  energetic- 
ally protecting  the  Jews  from  violence,"  he  said, 
"  the  Government  recognised  the  need  of  equally 
vigorous  measures  for  removing  the  existing 
abnormal  relations  between  the  Jews  and  the 
native  population  and  for  protecting  the  people 
from  that  injurious  activity  of  the  Jews  which  was 


126  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

the  real  cause  of  the  agitation."  In  these,  and 
in    other   not    less  menacing  phrases  with  which 

Ignatieff  prefaced  his  directions  for  the  formation 
of  local  commissions  to  inquire  into  the  subject,  the 
Hebrews  discerned  the  foundations  for  a  colossal 
superstructure  of  blackmail. 

While  the  "  inquiry  "  went  on,  the  riots  increased 
in  frequency  and  violence.  The  minor  officials 
had  caught  their  cue,  and  circulated  the  most 
j'  shameless  lies  about  the^  Nihilists— being-  entirely 
composed  of  Jews,  and  about  fresh  Israelitish  plots 
for  the  murder  of  the^jiew  Czar.  They  even 
winked  at  the  distribution  and  placarding  of  a 
bogus  ukase  which  purported  to  give  imperial 
sanction  to  the  spoliation  of  the  Jews.1  S.ynagogues 
were  burned  and  Jewish  quarters  sacked  in  dozens 
of  southern  towns  ;  Sarah  Bernhardt  was  publicly 
mobbed  as  a  Jewess  in  Odessa  ;  the  Christmas- 
tide  horror  in  Warsaw,  where  900  houses  and  shops 
were  broken  into  and  pillaged  and  10,000  people 
driven  into  thejvv'intry  streets,  ran  its  cruel  course 
without  interference  from  the  garrison  of  20,000 
troops,  whose  commandant,  like  Drentelnat  Kiefif, 
"  would  not  trouble  his  soldiers  for  a  pack  of  dogs 
of  Jews." 

All  this  had  been  done,  bear  in  mind,  without 

le  issuance  of  any  new  adverse  law  or  regulation. 

'he  legal  status  of  the  Jew  remained  precisely 

^hat  it  had  been  under  Alexander  II.  The 
difference  lay  in  the  spirit  which  now,  from 
Ignatieff  down    to    the    humblest  tchinoviky   ani- 


i 


I(;NA'riEFF   AND    THE    MAY    LAWS  127 

mated  the  bureaucracy.  Tens  of  thousands  of 
Jews  had  fled  across  the  frontier  before  the 
culminating  tragedies  of  Warsaw  and  Balta.  The 
fliofht  then  became  an  exodus. 

Meanwhile  rumour  was  busy  with  an  expulsion 
edict  which  Ignatieff  had  ready  for  promulgation. 
An  abstract  of  this  edict  was  surreptitiously 
confided  to  the  leading  Jews  of  St.  Petersburg, 
accompanied  by  the  intimation  that  Ignatieff  was 
still  open  to  reasonable  arguments  upon  the  sub- 
ject. Details  of  what  followed  have  been  given 
to  me  by  men  of  weight  and  position,  who  took 
part  in  the  conferences  held.  The  Minister's 
"openness"  of  mind  took  tangible  form  in  this 
proposition  :  For  the  sum  of  1,000,000  roubles  he 
would  guarantee  to  except  St.  Petersburg  from 
the  provisions  of  the  coming  ukase.  The  principal 
Jews  of  St.  Petersburg  gave  anxious  consideration 
to  this  offer.  They  finally  decided  to  decline  it, 
upon  grounds  which  were  given  to  me  in  this 
order  :  First,  the  immense  difficulty  of  raising 
such  a  sum  of  money  :  second,  the  danger  of  being 
found  out :  third,  the  impossibility  of  believing 
that  Ignatieff  would  keep  his  word. 

It  is  said  that  some  few  made  private  terms 
on  their  individual  account  with  Ignatieff.  The 
community  as  a  whole  refused  to  pay  the  bribe  he 
demanded. 

His  answer  was  the  "  May  laws."  These 
temporary  orders,  as  they  were  officially  called, 
were   confined    in    their   operation    to   the    Pale. 


'J 


v.>J- 


128  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

They  comprised  only  three  clauses,  one  compel- 
ling all  Jews  within  the  fifteen  provinces  hence- 
forth to  live  in  towns  ;  one  suspending  all  their 
mortgages  and  leases  on  landed  estates,  and  also 
their  powers  of  attorney  for  managing  estates ; 
*^  .and  one  forbidding  them  to  carry  on  business  on 

'Sundays  and  the  principal  Christian  holidays. 
f^^^V-=^>  These  famous  edicts  bear  the  date  of  May  15, 
r882. 

The  first  emotion  is  one  of  surprise  that  these 
laws,  which  so  profoundly  stirred  all  Christendom, 
should  contain  only  such  limited  and  relatively 
inoffensive  provisions.  They  involved  hardships^ 
no  doubt,  and  measurably  complicated  the  problem 
of  existence  which,  as  we  have  seen,  had  always 
pressed  so  cruelly  for  settlement  within  the 
crowded  and  poverty-stricken  Pale.  But,  com- 
pared with  the  evil  reputation  they  bear  in  the 
world's  memory,  they  do  not  seem  so  dreadful 
after  all. 

The  point  is  that  these  laws,  which  were  all 
that  Ignatieff  dared  venture  ask  the  Czar's  sig- 
nature for,  and  which  he  issued  as  "temporary 
\  orders,"  because  he  feared  their  rejection  if  sub- 
Vnitted  to  the  Council  of  the  Empire,  bore  only 
yfhe  smallest  relation  to  the  ferocious  outburst  of 
persecution  associated  with  their  name.  They 
merely  cast  the  shadow  of  imperial  authority  over 
the  Ministerial y?/(^^;///^/-2'^. 

The  savage  orgy  of  official  violence  which  en- 
sued was  independent  of  all  law^s.     No  pretence 


IGNATIEFF   AND    THE    MAY    LAWS  129 

was  made  of  confininQ^  it  to  the  Pale.  The  crea- 
tion  of  Mehkoff's  dictatorship,  and,  later,  the  re^gn 
of  martial  force  following  the  assassination, 
disorganised  completely  such  traces  of  system  an 
responsibility  as  had  previously  restrained  the 
local  officials.  Every  man  in  uniform  had  become 
a  law  to  himself  The  mere  rumour  of  the  "  May 
laws"  served  to  precipitate  a  headlong  rush  upon 
the  unhappy  Jews.  We  need  not  dwell  upon  the 
results ;  sufficient  are  the  horrors  of  our  ow 
immediate  day.  It  is  enough  to  note  that  the 
excesses  sent  a  wave  of  indignation  surging  all 
over  the  civilised  world,  which  found  vent  in 
ringing  protests  and  the  prompt  organisation  of 
committees  of  succour  and  relief.  The  amazing 
statement  is  made  now  that  between  April  of 
1881  and  June  of  1882  not  less  than  225,000 
Jewish  families — comprising  over  a  million  souls 
and  representing  a  loss  to  the  Empire  ^  of 
^22,000,000 — fled  from  Russia!  * 

The  May  laws  had  been  issued  but  a  mon 
when  there  came  a  sudden  and  strangely  unex 
pected  deliverance.     Ignatieff  retired  from  office 
on  June  12. 

As  I  have  said,  he  has  industriously  built  up 
the  fiction  that  his  downfall  was  due  to  his  desire 
to  re-establish  a  mediaeval  variety  of  Parliamen- 
tary  institutrons~~m    Russia.     The  lie   is  charac-/ 
teristic.      He  waslturned  out  because  convincing 

*  "The  History  of  the  Year"— October  1881  to  October  1882.^ 
London  :  Cassell,  Fetter,  Galpin  &  Co. 

I  t — 


I30  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

proof  of  his  attempt  to  extort  a  million  roubles 
from  the  Hebrew  community  of  St.  Petersburg 
was  laid  befor^^tHe  Czar.  With  this  exposure  of 
the  shocking  venality  and  beast-like  battening  on 
human  misery  which  underlay  the  persecution,  it 
came  to  an  abrupt  end. 

An  additional  reason  for  Ignatieft's  tumble  was 
given  me  by  a  Russian  official,   whom    I   met  in 
Bucharest,    and    who    had    been    in     1882     in    a 
position  to  know  very  well  what  was  going  on. 
According   to    this   narrative,    Ignatieff  took   the 
precaution,  after  the  May  laws  had  been  drafted, 
but  before  the  Czar  had  seen  them,  to  send  his 
venerable  and  infirm  mother  down  to  Kieff,  near 
which  all  his  great  Southern  estates  lie,  and  have 
her  on  his  behalf  privily  renew  all  the  contracts 
with  his   Jewish  farm-managers  and  tenants   for 
another   twelve    years.     It   was    only    after    his 
mother  had  telegraphed   to   him  the  fact  of  the 
contracts  having  been   renewed,   that  he   secured 
the    Imperial    signature    to    the   May   Laws   and 
promulgated    them.      This    was    very    clever — 
almost  as  clever  perhaps,  as  that  earlier  perform- 
ance of  his  at  Constantinople,  when  as  Russian 
Ambassador  he  combined  with  the  Grand  Vizier 
to  officially  deny  the  current  and  correct  report 
that  the  interest  on  a  certain  Turkish  loan  was  to 
be    defaulted,    to    sell    this    and    other    Turkish 
securities  "  short "  on  a  market  thus  fraudulently 
inflated,  and,  when  the  crash  came,  to  each  pocket 
profits  said  to  have  mounted  into  the  millions — 


IGNATIEFF   AND    THE    MAY    LAWS  131 

but  one  important  circumstance  had  been  over- 
looked. The  Czar's  uncle,  the  late  Grand  Duke 
Nicholas,  also  owned  large  estates  near  Kieff. 
When  the  May  laws  were  promulgated,  Nicholas, 
who  had  been  taken  by  surprise,  hurried  to  fore- 
stall their  action  by  seeking  to  renew  the  contracts 
with  his  Jewish  managers  and  tenants.  They 
told  him  that  he  was  too  late,  and  expressed  their 
regret  that  he  had  not  acted  sooner,  say  when 
Count  Ignatieff  renewed  all  his  contracts  on  his 
neighbouring  properties.  The  Grand  Duke, 
astounded  at  this,  made  inquiries,  and  carried  the 
proofs  of  Ignatieff's  perfidy  straight  to  his  nephew, 
the  Czar. 

It  is  stories  like  these  which  explain  why  l(he 
Jew's  only  name  for  the  Russian  is  "  Afoin^ 
^anev,''  that  is  to  say,  "the  thief."  I  give  it  as  it 
was  narrated  with  circumstantial  detail  to  me,  by^ 
Russian  who  did  not  dislike  Ignatieff,  and  who 
related  the  anecdote  with  evident  pride  in  the  ex- 
Minister's  shrewdness.  How  much,  if  true,  it  had 
to  do  with  Ignatieff's  downfall  I  cannot  pretend 
to  say.  But  it  is  interesting,  if  only  from  the 
proof  it  affords  that  Jewish  managers  and  tenants 
were  valued  by  owners  of  big  agricultural  estates 
above  their  Slavonic  neighbours.  To  this  day,  it 
is  the  fact  that  the  subordinates  who  superintend 
and  carry  on  the  bulk  of  Ignatieff's  widely 
extended  property  interests  and  affairs  are 
Hebrews. 

Ignatieff's  successor,  Count  Dmitri  Tolstoi,  had 


132  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

belonged  to  the  reactionary  party  as  Minister  of 
Education,  and  could  in  no  sense  be  regarded 
as  a  reformer.  But,  following  Ignatieff,  he  was 
veritably  Hyperion  to  a  satyr.  He  recalled  his 
predecessor's  September  circular,  and,  although 
the  May  laws  were  not  revoked,  all  official 
demonstrations  against  the  Jews  were  summarily 
stopped. 

People  said  that  at  last  the  new  Czar  had 
asserted  himself,  and  congratulated  one  another 
upon  the  beneficent  promise  which  this  involved 
to  Russia  and  to  civilisation.  We  pass  now  to  a 
study  of  the  manner  of  man  this  new  Czar  is,  and 
of  the  unhappy  means  by  which  that  promise  of 
his  early  reign  has  been  turned  into  Dead  Sea 
fruit  of  curses  and  of  crimes  against  humanity. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   CZAR   AND   HIS   COUNSELLORS 

When    the   witty    Abbe    Galiani    declared  thar 
Virtue  was  more  dangerous  than  Vice,  because  its 
excesses  were  not  open  to   the   restraints  of  con- 
science, he  might  well  have  beheld,  in   prophe^ 
vision,  the  present  Czar  of  Russia. 

Alexander  III  has  now  been  more  than  eleven 
years  on  the  throne ;  he  held  an  Independent 
•command  in  a  great  war  fifteen  years  ago  ;  he 
has  been  a  brother-in-law  to  the  Prince  of  Wales 
for  over  a  quarter  of  a  century  ;  yet  to  this  day  he 
is  the  least-known  personage  in  Europe.  It  is 
not  alone  that  foreigners  have  little  information 
about  him.  His  own  subjects  know  even  less. 
When  they  have  told  you  that  he  is  an  extremely 
good  and  honourable  man,  personally ;  that  he 
loves  his  wife  very  much,  and  finds  his  greatest 
enjoyment  in  being  with  her  and  the  children, 
and  that  he  is  very  strong  and  works  hard,  you 
discover  that  their  impressions  are  exhausted. 

There  is  something  at  once  grotesque  and 
pathetic  in  this  Russian  ignorance  about  the 
Czar.  No  anecdotes  are  told  of  him.  No 
allusions  are  made  to  him  in  ordinary  conversa- 


134  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

tion.     A  hush  falls  upon  any  gathering,  all  over 

Russia,  at  the  mere  casual  mention  of  his   name. 

I    have  more  than   once    seen    this  strange    and 

sudden    constraint    manifest    itself   in   a   Russian 

family  circle,   where   English  was  being  spoken^ 

and  it  was  entirely  certain  that  the  servants  could 

not  understand  a  word  of  our  talk,  when  I   asked 

about  the  Czar.      Their   silence  said   plainly  that 

this  was  a  subject  to  be  left  alone.      I  know  of  nO' 

other  country  in  the  world  where  this  weird  awe 

at  the  very  sound  of  a  human  being's  name  can  be 

duplicated.     On    a  miniature  scale,   emotions  of 

this  sort  may  have  been  created  in  bygone  times 

in  some  lonely  part  of  England,  where  a  merciless 

and  mysterious  highwayman  held  every  road  under 

a  nightmare  of  terror,  and  no  one  knew  or  dared 

guess  who  his  confederates  might  be. 

The  Czar's  plans  are  never  published.  The 
fiag  is  kept  flying  on  each  of  his  palaces  whether 
he  is  living  there  or  not.  The  people  of  St. 
Petersburg  rarely  know  whether  he  is  in  resi- 
dence there  or  somewhere  else.  That  is  a 
question  which  no  Russian  asks  of  another.  I 
was  in  the  capital  during  the  visit  of  the  French 
fleet.  The  English  newspaper  correspondents 
had  absolutely  no  means  of  learning  from  day  to 
day  what  was  ^oing  to  happen.  The  officials 
gave  them  plenty  of  information,  of  course,  but  it 
was  all  false.  The  Czar  never  appeared  at  the 
times  and  places  they  indicated,  but  invariably  did 
appear    when    the    correspondents    were  chasing 


4 


THE   CZAR   ANM)    HIS    COUNSELLORS        135 

wild  Pfeese  in  other  directions.  It  is  said  that 
the  officials  were  themselves  as  much  in  the  dark 
as  the  rest.  Once,  while  I  was  walking  with 
one  of  these  journalists  across  the  open  square 
in  front  of  the  Winter  Palace,  and  we  were  in 
doubt  whether  to  visit  the  Hermitage  Gallery  or 
take  the  boat  for  Cronstadt,  I  sus^orested  that  we 
ask  a  uniformed  officer  who  had  strolled  out  of 
the  Palace  if  the  Czar  was  to  inspect  the  fleet 
that  day  or  some  other.  My  companion  laughed 
aloud  at  the  idea.  "  We  should  probably  both 
be  arrested — you  certainly  would  be  shadowed  all 
over  Russia,"  he  said,  in  explanation. 

The  veil  of  mystery  which  envelops  the  Czar's 
intentions  almost  wholly  masks  his  individuality. 
In  addition  to  his  great  personal  goodness,  it  is 
understood  that  he  is  a  taciturn  man,  and  it  is 
apparent  that  he  is  growing  very  fat.  Every 
Russian,  moreover,  is  familiar  with  the  fact  that  he 
wears  a  large  full  beard,  a  fact  which  is  not 
without  significance,  by  the  way,  for  since  PetW 
the  Great  established  the  cult  of  shaving  this  it 
the  first  male  ruler  of  Russia  who  has  shaved  nc 
part  of  his  face.  But  there  popular  knowledge  o; 
Alexander  III  abruptly  ends. 

It  was  my  fortune  to  get  to  know  several 
people — nether  Russians  nor  Jews — who  see  a 
good  deal  of  the  intimate  side  of  imperial  life, 
and  who  talked  with  a  certain  degree  of  freedom 
about  its  more  important  features.  It  was  not 
much  that  they  could  tell,  after  all  was  said  and 


136  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

done,  but  it  at  least  threw  some  light  upon  the 
baffling  enigma  with  which  the  outside  world  has 
laboured  since  1881.  I  offer  it  for  nothing  more 
than  the  candid  talk  of  men  who  know  the  Czar, 
and  are  personally  well  affected  towards  him. 

Alexander  III  is  a  man  of  rather  limited  men- 
tal endowments  and  acquirements,  who  does  not 
easily  see  more  than  one  thing  at  a  time,  and  who 
gets  to  see  that  slowly.  In  other  words,  he  is  a 
born  "potterer."  He  has  no  idea  of  system  and 
no  executive  talent.  He  would  not  be  selected  to 
manage  the  affairs  of  a  village  if  he  were  an  or- 
dinary citizen.  It  is  the  very  irony  of  fate  that  he 
has  been  made  responsible  for  the  management  of 
half  a  million  villages. 

He  has  an  abiding  sense  of  the  sacredness  of 
this  responsibility,  and  he  toils  assiduously  over  the 
task  as  it  is  given  him  to  comprehend  it.  Save 
for  brief  periods  of  holiday-making  with  his  family, 
he  works  till  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the  morningf 
examining  papers,  reading  suggestions,  and  signing 
papers.     No  man  in  the  empire  is  busier  than  he. 

The  misery  of  it  is  that  all  this  irksome  labour 
is  of  no  use  whatever.  So  far  as  the  real  Govern- 
ment of  Russia  is  concerned,  he  might  as  well  be 
employed  in  wheeling  bricks  from  one  end  of  a 
yard  to  the  other  and  then  back  again.  Even 
when  one  tries  to  realise  what  "  Russian  Govern- 
ment "  is  like — with  its  vast  bureaucracy  essaying 
the  stupendous  task  of  maintaining  an  absolute 
personal  supervision  over  every  individual  human 


THE    CZAR   AND    HIS.  COUNSELLORS         137 

unit  in  a  mass  of  a  hundred  millions,  and  that 
through  the  least  capable  and  most  uniformly 
corrupt  agents  to  be  found  in  the  world — the 
mind  cannot  grasp  the  utter  hopelessness  of  it  all. 
The  ablest  man  ever  born  of  woman  could  do 
next  to  nothing  with  it — at  least,  until  he  had 
cleared  the  ground  by  slaying  some  scores  of 
thousands  of  officials. 

Alexander  III  simply  struggles  on  at  one  little 
corner  of  the  towering  pyramid  of  routine  business 
which  his  Ministers  pile  up  before  him.  Com- 
pared with  him  Sisyphus  was  a  gentleman  of 
leisure. 

This  slow-minded,  mercilessly-burdened  man 
knows  very  little  either  of  the  events  close  about 
him  or  of  the  broader  currents  of  contemporaneous 
history  outside.  He  had  the  customary  elaborate 
education  from  which  most  Princes  mysteriously 
manage  to  extract  so  little  benefit,  and  he  seems 
to  have  got  less  of  it  than  usual.  He  was  a  man 
grown  before  his  elder  brother's  death  pushed  him 
forward  as  heir  to  the  throne.  A  belated  effort 
was  then  made  to  engraft  upon  his  weak  and 
spindling  tree  of  knowledge  some  of  the  special 
fruits  of  learning  which  a  future  Emperor  should 
possess.  He  was  docile  and  good.  Some  of  his 
teachers  established  a  powerful  personal  influence 
over  him,  the  effects  of  which  were  afterwards  to 
be  of  such  terrible  moment,  but  they  accomplished 
little  else. 

The   old  Czar,  Alexander  II,   viewed  his  heir 


138  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

with  melancholy  aversion  and  distrust.  He  was 
kept  down  as  much  as  possible,  and  made  to  feel 
his  father's  unsympathetic  attitude  in  many  ways. 
Once  or  twice  he  was  subjected  to  disciplinary 
measures,  which  have  been  described  to  me  as  not 
readily  distinguishable  from  imprisonment.  This 
is  only  another  way  of  saying  that,  like  most  other 
heirs  apparent,  he  became  the  focus  of  attraction 
for  all  the  elements  of  disaffection  in  civil  service 
and  army  alike.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  ever 
assumed  the  leadership  of  these  elements  or  had 
anything  to  do  with  their  intrigues.  The  only 
instance  of  interference  attributed  to  him  is  that 
already  mentioned,  when  he  appealed  to  the  Czar 
to  investigate  the  gross  financial  scandals  thrust 
upon  his  notice  at  the  seat  of  war.  But  the  old 
Czar  none  the  less  regarded  him  as  fully  identified 
with  the  reactionary  forces  of  the  Empire,  and  was 
troubled  with  gloomy  forebodings  as  to  the  charac- 
ter of  his  reiofn. 

This  natural  dulness  of  mind  and  the  enormous 
burden  of  routine  work  ceaselessly  pressing  upon 
it,  go  some  way  toward  accounting  for  the  one 
feature  about  the  Czar  which  most  puzzles  outsiders 
— namely,  that  he  doesn't  seem  to  have  any  notion 
whatever  of  what  is  going  on  in  his  own  country. 
_He  reads  two  papers — the  A^ovoe  Vreinya, 
which  Sttvorin  learned  how  to  make  pleasing  to 
his  tastes_and  feelings,  even  before  he  became 
Emperor,  and  the  Gras/idaiiin,  which  is  edited 
by  a  bright  man  of  position   for  whom   the  Czar 


il 


THE    CZAR    AND    HIS    COUNSELLORS        139 

has  a  great  liking,  Prince  Mastchersky.  To  these 
personal  relations  is  ascribed  the  peculiar  licence 
allowed  to  the  Grashdanin  ;  one  continually  finds 
in  it  a  freedom  of  expression  which  no  other 
editor,  not  even  Suvorin,  would  dare  venture  upon. 
While  I  was  in  St.  Petersburg,  for  example,  the 
Grashdajiin  quite  frankly  deprecated  the  craziness 
with  which  Russia  was  dancing  about  in  its  welcome 
to  the  French  fleet.  Similar  utterances  in  another 
paper  would  have  involved  prompt  conflict  with 
the  censor. 

But  the  Grashdanin  is  no  whit  freer  than  the 
A^ovoe  Vremya  in  the  handling  of  what  is  called 
news.  The  newspapers  of  Paris,  curious  as  they 
seem  when  judged  by  English  or  American  news 
standards,  are  mines  of  information  compared  with 
the  journals  of  St.  Petersburg.  They  contain  only 
the  baldest  and  barest  skeleton  summary  of  the 
world's  events,  laying  great_  stress  upon  births 
and  deaths  within  the  blue-blooded  pale  of  royalty, 
and  for  the  rest  chiefly~^Tironicling  accidents, 
fires,  and  like  non-contentious  happenings.  Such 
political  writing  as  is  permitted  them  is  almost 
wholly  confined  to  foreign  politics,  and  is  usually 
in  controversial  comment  upon  utterances  quoted 
from  the  Berlin,  Vienna,  or  London  press.  But 
these  utterances  must  have  been  originally  harm- 
less, or  they  would  have  been  blacked  out  by  the 
foreign  press  censor  before  the  Russian  editors 
got  them. 

It  is  understood  that  the  Empress  receives  and 


I40  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

reads    the    Thnes.     The   question  is  often  raised 
whether  she  does  not  bring  to  her  husband's  atten- 
tion the  facts  about  Russian  misgovernment  which 
its  St.  Petersburg  correspondent  has  for  years  so 
bravely  pubHshed.      It  is  said  that  on  occasion  she 
had    done    this,    and    that,    moreover,    upon    the 
suggestion  of  her  brother,  the  Crown   Prince  of 
Denmark,  and  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales, 
she  has  tried  to  put  before  him  something  of  the 
amazed  disg-ust  with  which  Russian  doing's  seem 
to    have    inspired    Christendom.       Many  varying 
stories  are  told  of  these  efforts   to  improve   the 
annual  Imperial  holiday  at  Fredensborg,  in  Copen- 
hagen Court  circles.      It  is  said,  for  example,  that 
some  one  of  the  English  royal  party  which  was 
there  last  autumn  to  meet  him  nailed  a  copy  of 
Darkest  Russia  on  an  inner  door  of  his  apartments, 
half-jokingly,  half  in  earnest.      In  another  quarter 
it    is    averred    that    the    Czarina   ventured   last 
September  to  show  him  a  letter  she  had  received 
from  her  sister,    the   Princess   of  Wales,    on   the 
\,   subject  of  the  Jewish  persecutions,  and  that  the 
\  Czar,  losing  his  temper,  brought  his  hand  down 
Wigorously  upon    the   table  and  commanded  that 
the  topic  be  not  mentioned  again  in  his  presence. 
But   the  poor  little   frightened    and   saddened 
lady,  over  whom  hangs  day  and  night  the  haunt- 
ing horror  of  a  violent  death  for  those  she  loves, 
can  have  but  small  heart  for  this  mission.     The 
one  consolation  of  her  unhappy  life  is  the  tender 
affection  in  which  the  weary  and  puzzled  big  man. 


THE   CZAR   AND    HIS   COUNSELLORS         141 

her  husband,  holds  her.  Why  should  she  vex  and 
grieve  this  affection  by  repeating  to  him  the 
malicious  things  which  outsiders  are  saying  about 
his  work  ? 

That  they  are  malicious,  I  am  assured  that  the 
Czar  firmly  believes.  How  should  he  learn  other- 
wise ?     When  these  German  or  Enalish  accusa- 

o 

tions  of  cruelty,  of  injustice,  of  crime  are  brought 
under  his  notice,  let  us  assume  that  he  makes 
inquiries.  To  whom  does  he  address  these  in- 
quiries ?  Obviously  to  the  officials.  And  quite 
as  obviously  these  officials  swear  with  solemnity 
and  fine  unanimity  that  the  allegations  are  all 
monstrous  falsehoods.  A  sharper,  bolder,  more 
energetic  ruler  might  contrive  to  force  his  way 
behind  this  barricade  of  official  assurances  which 
surrounds  the  throne,  and  get  once  in  a  while  at 
something  like  the  truth.  Alexander  III  does 
not  even  try  to  do  this — and  doubtless  would  fail 
if  he  did  try. 

Indeed,  under  the  skilful  manipulation  of  one  of 
these  officials,  these  attacks  upon  Russian  honour 
and  civilisation  have  had  quite  a  different  effect 
upon  him  from  that  contemplated.  So  far  from 
awakening  him  to  the  truth,  they  have  rendered 
him  sullenly  and  obstinately  enraged  at  their 
authors,  and  at  the  foreign  communities  which 
credit  them. 

The  trait  of  family  affection,  which  is  developed 
in  the  Czar  to  almost  a  morbid  state,  colours  his 
attitude    toward     Russia.      He     thinks     of    the 


142  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

whole  Russian  people  as  his  children ;  to  his  mind 
they  are  all  under  one  roof — his  roof.  Above 
everything  else,  he  will  strive  to  protect  the  family 
reputation.  If  scandals  arise,  his  chief  desire  is  to 
hush  them  up,  to  prevent  their  being  noised 
abroad.  He  will  make  an  effort  to  see  justice 
done,  and  to  punish  the  offenders,  but  his  fore- 
most solicitude  is  that  it  may  all  be  done  quietly. 
Hence  one  from  time  to  time  witnesses  in  Russia 
the  phenomenon  of  an  apparently  influential 
official  being  suddenly,  without  warning  or  trial, 
pulled  down  out  of  sight  and  secretly  sequestered. 
He  may  never  reappear  again,  and  all  that  people 
will  euess  about  the  affair  will  be  that  in  some 
way  his  misdeeds  became  known  to  "the  little 
father." 

This  quality,  upon  which  those  who  are  informed 
about  the  Czar  lay  great  stress,  quite  naturally 
prevents  his  taking  kindly  to  foreign  criticism.  In 
truth,  it  makes  him  furious,  and  for  that  reason, 
again,  he  avoids  reading  or  learning  about  it. 

This  picture  of  the  Czar,  based  upon  the  talk 
of  people  who  know  him  and  like  him,  might  easily 
be  expanded  in  the  direction  of  personal  gossip, 
but  that  is  not  desirable  here.  In  some  respects 
these  private  hints  run  counter  to  generally  ac- 
cepted notions.  For  example,  public  belief  holds 
firmly  to  the  idea  that  the  Czar  is  a  very  devout 
man,  and  that  since  the  Borki  accident  he  has 
been  a  religious  monomaniac.  I  am  assured  that 
he  takes  his  personal  religion  very  easily  indeed, 


THE    CZAR   AND    HIS    COUNSELLORS        143 

and  has  never  expressed  any  concern  in  the  minis- 
trations of  the  palace  chaplains  save  that  they 
should  make  their  sermons  shorter.  In  the  same 
way,  he  is  popularly  thought  of  as  an  ardent  pan- 
Slavist,  whereas  my  information  is  that  he  am 
the  dominant  Court  circles,  as  distinguished  froi 
official  circles,  are  against  pan-Slavism. 

These  are  notes  of  contradiction  which  tend'  I 
frankly  confess,  to  disturb  the  balance  of  the 
theory  I  brought  away  from  Russia  with  me.  They 
render  certain  current  phenomena  less  easy  of 
comprehension  than  they  would  have  otherwise 
seemed.  But  they  could  not  be  suppressed  with 
candour,  and,  after  all,  giving  them  their  greatest 
weight,  they  but  serve  to  show  afresh  what  an 
inexplicable  chaos  of  confusion  and  clashing  cross- 
purposes  the  whole  Russian  question  presents. 

One  further  personal  point,  and  we  may  leave 
the  individuality  of  the  Czar  and  take  up  once 
more  the  thread  of  events.  Alexander  III  is 
called  by  sundry  enthusiasts  the  Peacemaker  of 
Europe.  The  informants  to  whom  I  have  referred 
agree  that,  though  he  is  by  nature  a  kindly  man, 
he  is  not  at  all  swayed  by  humanitarian  views,  and 
has  no  more  abstract  hatred  of  war  than  has  any 
other  trained  soldier.  His  objection  to  war  is, 
however,  very  strong,  and  it  is  based  entirely 
upon  his  dread  of  the  physical  discomfort  to  which 
a  man  of  his  increasing  bulk  would  be  subjected 
in  the  saddle.  This  sounds  almost  comical,  but 
it  is  given  to  me  for  sober  fact. 


144  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

We  have  seen  how  this  slow,  commonplace, 
conscientious  man  wavered  and  trembled  in  hesi- 
tation when,  in  March  of  1881,  the  murder  of  his 
father  suddenly  threw  upon  him  the  overwhelming 
weight  of  Czarship.  Much  has  been  told  me  of 
the  brief  period  in  which  the  new  Czar,  startled 
and  shaken  by  the  frightful  tragedy,  yet  even  more 
moved  by  dazed  contemplation  of  the  herculean 
task  devolved  upon  him,  dreamed  of  attempting 
to  follow  in  his  parent's  footsteps,  and  keep 
the  poor  little  plant  of  Liberalism  alive.  There  is 
neither  time  nor  space  here  in  which  to  dwell 
upon  this  phase  of  the  story. 

It  is  enough  to  note  once  more  that  nothing 
came  of  this  momentary  first  impulse.  The  reac- 
tionaries, Ignatieff  at  their  head,  swarmed  back 
into  place  and  power.  It  is  true  that  after  thirteen 
months,  as  has  been  related,  Ignatieff 's  effort  to 
blackmail  the  Jews  of  St.  Petersburg  was  revealed 
\  to  the  Czar,  and  he  was  summarily  thrown  from 
pffice.  His  successor.  Count  Tolstoi,  reversed  the 
policy  of  the  Government  against  the  Jews.  But 
in  other  respects  there  was  little  or  no  change. 
Officialism  grew  stronger  year  by  year ;  cliques  of 
Ministers  and  Governors  gathered  more  and  more 
fully  into  their  hands  the  vast  powers  of  the 
autocracy.  Even  when  the  Czar  most  actively 
bestirred  himself  he  could  not  control  the  ten- 
thousandth  part  of  the  things  they  did  in  his 
name. 

So  far  as  the  Imperial  family  exerts  any  influence 


THE   CZAR   AND    HIS   COUNSELLORS         145 

upon  the  head  of  their  house,  it  is  probably  on  the 
wronof  side.     Of  the  Czar's  uncles,  brothers  to  the 
late   Alexander    II,    two    have    recently   died — 
Constantine,  who  was  a  learned  and  liberal-minded 
man,  and  suspect  on  that  account,  and  Nicholas, 
who  was  neither  learned  nor  liberal,  but  had  too 
evil  an  official  and  financial  record  to  enjoy  his 
nephew's  respect  or  confidence.     The  remaining 
uncle,  the  Grand  Duke  Michael,  is  a  scholarly  and 
sensible  Prince,  who  used  to  be  able  to  do  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  good  in  his  post  as  President  of 
the  Council  of  the  Empire,  but  who  is  now  sixty 
years  old  and  has  grown  tired  of  the  thankless 
task  of  resisting  that  awful  dead  weight  of  the 
bureaucracy.  The  first-named  of  these  three,  Con- 
stantine, left  a  son  bearing  his  own   name,  now 
an  alert-faced,  bright-eyed  officer  of  thirty-four, 
who  is  considered  to  be  intellectually  the  best  of 
the  Romanoffs.  This  Constantine  Constantinovitch 
has  written  one  or  two   books,   and  a  poem  at 
which  the  Czar  is  said  to  have  lifted  his  eyebrows. 
He  bears  one  of  those  vague  and  intangible  repu- 
tations for  Liberalism  which  grow  so  easily  from  a 
despotic  soil,  and  is  worth  remembering,  not  for 
what  he  has  done,  but  for  what  numerous  Russians 
imagine  he  may  do,  if  the  affairs  of  their  country 
drift  still  further  downward  to  absolute  chaos. 

One  of  the  Czar's  four  brothers  stands  out  with 
prominence  as  a  strong  and  powerful  figure  in  im- 
perial counsels.  Of  the  other  three  Alexis  is  too 
easy-going  and  pleasure-loving  to  worry  his  hand- 

K 


146  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

some  head  about  politics,  Serge  is  a  foolish  man 
with  nothing  to  say  for  himself,  and  Paul  is  too 
young  to  carry  weight,  even  if  he  gave  promise  of 
capacity.  But  the  Grand  Duke  Vladimir  is  a 
potential  and  genuine  personality. 

In  many  respects,  Vladimir,  who    is    only  two 
years  younger  than  the  Czar,  is  the  truest  descend- 
ant of  Nicholas  that   Russia  has  seen.     He  has 
more  of  the  stalwart  and  somewhat  sinister  come- 
liness of  his  grandfather  than  any  of  the  others. 
He  inherits,  too,  a  large  share  of  that  remarkable 
despot's  great  energy  and  personal  force.     What- 
ever he  sets  about  doing  gets  done.      He  has  a 
bitter  kind  of  wit,  which  sometimes  achieves  the 
painfully  rare  feat  of  making  the  Czar  laugh.     His 
robust  vigour  and  clear  way  of  seeing  and  going 
straight  to  the  point  also  commend   him   to  his 
brother's  confidence.      How  strong  he  is  may  be 
seen  from  the  fact  that  his  wife,  a  Mecklenburg 
Princess,  and  in  resolution  and  marked  individual- 
ity a  fit  mate  for  Vladimir,  has  been  able  to  defy 
for  eighteen  years  the  tremendous  pressure  brought 
by    Court   and    Church    to   bear   upon    all    non- 
Orthodox  wives  of  Grand   Dukes  to  accept  the 
Greek  faith.     If  Vladimir  chose  to  play  a  part  for 
himself  in   Russia,  he  might  work  untold  results. 
Although  there  are  two  lives  between  him    and 
the  succession,  people  have  an  uneasy  feeling  that 
somehow,  some  time,  he  will  be  Czar.     But  thus  far 
his  chosen  role  has  been  that  of  his  brother's  right- 
hand  man.      He  is  openly  a  reactionary — a  frank 


H.I.H.    THE     GRAND     DUKE     VLADIMIR 


THE    CZAR   AND    HIS    COUNSELLORS         147 

believer  in  autocracy,  sustained  if  needful  by  gibbet 
and  grape-shot.  When,  a  little  while  ago,  it  was 
rumoured  that  he  was  to  succeed  General  Gourko 
at  Warsaw,  the  fact  that  Gourko  is  the  most  merci- 
lessly savage  governor  any  living  Pole  can  re- 
member, did  not  prevent  a  thrill  of  dismay  running 
through  Poland  at  the  prospect  of  the  change. 
To  conclude,  Vladimir  is  the  man  of  whom  Minis- 
ters and  high  officials  stand  in  most  dread. 

There  are  very  few  of  these  bureaucrats  dimly 
diicernible  in  the  thick  shadows  of  Russian  des- 
potism whom  we  need  trouble  ourselves  to  dis- 
tinguish, even  by  name.  When  Count  Dmitri 
Tolstoi  died,  a  less  able  and  less  scrupulous  man, 
Dournovo,  became  Minister  of  the  Interior.  Some 
time  before  this,  a  minor  official  named  Vishneerad- 
sky  had  the  fortune  to  write  a  report  on  Russian 
finance  which  attracted  the  Czar's  attention — and 
won  from  him  the  curious  declaration  that  it  was 
the  first  document  of  the  sort  he  had  ever  been 
able  to  understand.  The  lucky  author  was  made 
Minister  of  Finance.  There  will  be  more  to  say 
of  him  in  the  sequel.  The  Czar  from  the  outset 
has  insisted  upon  personally  directing  at  least  the 
foreign  policy  of  his  Empire,  and,  accordingly, 
M.  de  Giers,  a  supple  and  observant  courtier, 
remains  in  only  nominal  control  at  the  post  of 
Foreign  Minister.  The  Czar's  former  military 
tutor,  Vannoffsky,  is  Minister  of  War,  and,  with 
the  Grand  Duke  Vladimir  and  Dournovo,  is  at 
the  head  of  what  is  called  the  war  party. 


1 


148  THE  NEW   EXODUS 

But  more  important  than  any  of  these,  more 
important  than  the  Czar  himself,  is  the  thin-faced, 
slender,  spectacled  man  who  since  1880  has  been 
Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod  —  M.  Pobiedon- 
pstseff. 

This  remarkable  personage  fascinates  the  imagin- 
ition.  He  is  as  unintelligible  to  the  modern 
Western  mind  as  Torgugmada.  Indeed,  one  must 
go  back  to  mediaeval  times  for  every  parallel 
which  he-_aiid_lu.s___work  suggest.  The  whole 
situatiorLXCeatfi-d  Jiy  him  is  like  nothing  else  in 
history  so  much  as  that  which  Spain  presented 
under  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  where  the  influence 
of  a  man  we  cannot  now  at  all  comprehend  per- 
suaded  a  gentle,  wise,  and  kindly  Sovereign  to 
stain  her  reign  with  the  most  hideous  and  stupid 
of  crimes  against  humanity,  and  to  gratuitously 
work  the  destruction  of  her  country. 

Pobiedonostseff  is  a  learned  lawyer  who  was 
one  of  the  present  Czar's  tutors  in  his  youth. 
His  tastes  led  him,  however,  when  the  opportun- 
ities for  preferment  arose,  to  choose  the  ecclesiast- 
ical side  of  the  autocracy  in  which  to  serve.  (That 
he  is  a  sincerely  and  fanatically  pious  man,  as  the 
Greek  Church  understands  piety,  seems  beyond 
doubt.  During  the  great  fast  of  the  year  he  retires 
to  the  Sergiefll Monastery  and  mortifies^jJtie..  flesh 
as  vigorously  as  any  anchorite,  remaining  for  days 
on  his  knees.  Tasting  and  beating  his  forehead 
against  the  stone  floor.  This  does  not  prevent  his 
^st  amazing  and  barefaced  lies,  as  it 


"THE    GRAND    INQUISITOR" 

(/I/.  PoUcdonostscff,  Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod) 


THE    CZAR   AND    HIS   COUNSELLORS        149 

•did  not  prevent  his  coolly  persuading  the  Czar 
to  steal  Maurice  Hirsch's  million  roubles.  His 
religious  fervour  contemplates  without  blinking 
the  prospect  of  ten  millions'or'Jews,  Lutherans, 
Catholics,  and  dissenters  generally  bemg^espoiled, 
evicted,  harried  by  Cossacks  ahd"driven^"  like 
•criminals  from  their  hqn^es. 

This  theory  of  serving  God  with  falsehood, 
■with  theft,  with  shameless  treachery,  with  torture, 
massacre,  and  wholesale  persecution,  has  m  other 
times  possessed  the  brains  of  great  and  gooHmen 
of  our  own  Western  races.  But  these  men  have 
.all  been  dead  three  or  four  hundred  years.  Russia 
and  M.  Pobiedonostseff  have  only  just  reached 
the  point  where  Europe  stood  when  Columbus 
discovered  America.' 

Everything  is^ntfWadays  ascribed  to  the  ascend- 
ency which  Pobiedonostseff  exerts  over  the  mind 
of  the  Czar.  In  one  sense  that  is  true.  The 
Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod  had  long-standing 
claims  upon  the  affection  and  respect  of  the  new 
Czar  when  the  present  reign  began.  He  became 
a  trusted  adviser ;  then,  little  by  little,  the  power 
behind  the  throne.  He  crrevv  to  oruide  the  Czar 
in  the  selection  of  new  Ministers  and  officials  and 
in  the  distribution  of  honours-^aiid  of  rebukes  until 
the  whole  official  world  of  St^etersburof  dreaded 
him,  and  fawned  upon  him  as^ Paris  did  in  its  time 
^before  the  "  Gray  Cardinal."  To-day  the  enor- 
mous power  which  he  wields  is  exerted  much 
more  through  these  eager  official  sycophants,  who 

V' 


I50  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

owe  their  places  to  him  and  scramble  over  one 
another  in  their  haste  to  carry  out  his  most  faintly 
hinted  desire,  than  through  direct  personal  contact 
with  the  Czar. 

It  is  indeed  likely  that  he  himself  has  been 
swept  along  much  more  rapidly,  and  to  greater 
lengths  than  he  had  dreamed  of,  by  the  head- 
long zeal  of  these  underlings.  He  set  in  motion 
the  Governmental  machinery  for  the  repression 
of  dissent,  originally,  because  he  was  an  active- 
minded  man  who  took  his  duties  seriously,  and 
who  saw  that  anything  like  spiritual  revivals 
outside  the  GreekPburch  must  be  stopped  if 
Orthodoxywas  to  survive.  Once  begun,  this 
s-plfit  of  repression  quickly  ripened  into  a  rage  for 
persecution.  From  the  exiling  of  M.  Pashkoft 
in  1882,  for  the  crime  of  holding  Bible  meetings 
among  the  fashionable  people  of  St.  Petersburg, 
to-lb.e  expulsion  of  six  millions  of  Jewish  people, 
begun  in  1890,  is  a  tremendous  step.  But  the 
one  is  the  natural  sequence  of  the  other.  The 
prosecution  of  the  Pashkoftski  was  the  match 
which  set  fire  to  the  prairie. 

From  the  hunting  of  this  almost  ridiculously 
small  and  unimportant  quarry,  the  whole  massed 
pack  of  Russian  officials  have  excited  themselves 
into  a  gigantic  zuild-jagd  of  heretics  and  unbe- 
lievers all  over  the  Empire.  Franzos  tells  of  a 
Polish  prince,  Czartoryski,  who  went  gunning 
among  the  Jews  of  his  district  of  Podolia, 
"  because  there    was    so    little   game   left   in  the 


THE    CZAR   AND    HIS    COUNSELLORS        151 

neighbourhood.*  There  is  a  good  deal  of  this 
same  barbarous  hist  for  blood-letting  sport  in  what 
we  are  witnessing^  now.  A  shot  is  beingr  taken  at 
everything  that  rises — Mennonites,  Stundists,  the 
Molokani,  the  Finns,  the  Catholic  Poles,  the 
Germans,  the  Jews  alike.  Only  the  Moham-  I 
medan  subjects  of  the  Czar's  eastern  empire  are  ' 
not  molested,  save  here  and  there  in  isolated 
instances,  and  that  not  until  recently.  But  for 
all  other  non-Orthodox  game  there  is  no  close 
season. 

Of  this  vast  and  terrible  persecution  the  outside 
world  knows  but  little.  We  can  never  hope  to 
learn  the  thousandth  part  of  the  truth. 

But  it  is  possible  to  get  approximately  at  the 
facts,  so  far  as  its  Jewish  victims  are  concerned. 
For  many  reasons  they  attract  more  attention  and 
excite  a  greater  interest  throughout  the  world 
than  do  their  companions  in  misery.  Moreover, 
the  previous  existence  of  entire  volumes  of  laws 
adverse  to  them  has  rendered  it  the  easier  for  the 
police  to  harry,  plunder,  and  expel  them  en  masse. 
But  in  his  study  of  the  repellant  details  of  the 
year  of  terror  now  drawing  to  a  close,  and  in 
following  the  still  more  shocking  events  which 
the  near  future  threatens,  the  reader  must  re- 
member that  the  Jews  are  only  one  among 
many  unhappy  sects  and  classes  whom  Pobiedon- 

*  '•  The  Jews  of  Barnow."  Stoxies  by  Karl  Eiiiil  Franzos.  Edin- 
burgh and  Luiiduir:  1882.  One  of  the  most  striking  and  effective 
works  of  our  generation. 


152  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

ostseff  is  mercilessly  driving  to  despair,  ruin,  and 
exile. 

It  has  seemed  important  to  dwell  at  length 
upon  the  peculiar  conditions  existing  in  Russia, 
and  upon  a  historical  examination  of  the  dull 
incompetency,  ignoble  greed,  semi-civilised  vanity, 
and  stark-mad  fanaticism  which,  confusedly  strug- 
gling together  for  evil,  have  produced  this  savage 
spectacle  at  which  humanity  now  revolts.  We 
have  hereafter  to  consider  nothing  but  the  perse- 
cution itself. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE   HOLY   SYNOD  AT    WORK 

The  ascending  progress  of  the  Procurator  of  the 
Holy  Synod,  M.  Pobiedonostseff,  in  influence  and 
authority,  is  marked  at  each  successive  stage  by 
fresh  impositions  upon  the  Jews. 

I  have  noted  that  when  Count  Dmitri  Tolstoi 
succeeded  Ignatief17  "  the  Infamous,"  in  the  mid- 
summer of  1882,  the  persecution  which  had  been 
begun  under  the  May  laws  came  to  a  halt.  It  is 
true  that  the  laws  themselves  were  not  revoked, 
but  it  was  everywhere  understood  that,  like  such 
a  countless  number  ot  other  ukases  and  edicts* 
they  had  Japsed^  into  what  President  Cleveland 
called  "  innocuous  desuetude."  So  late  as  Novem- 
ber 1884,  when  a  question  arising  under  them 
was  referred  to  the  Governor  General  of  Wilna, 
he  declared  that  the  May  laws  had  been  sus- 
pended. 

Within  two  years — that  is  to  say,  by  1886 — the 
power  of  Pobiedonostseff  had  grown  so  great,  and 
the  might  of  the  ecclesiastical  arm  had  so  over- 
shadowed the  lay  forces  of  the  bureaucracy,  that 
a  blow  could  be  struck  at  the  Jews  more  cruelly 
shattering  in  its  effects  than  any  of  those  aimed  by 


154  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

the  May  laws.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the 
Russian  Hebrews  had  now,  for  more  than  twenty 
years,  displayed  a  feverish,  almost  fierce,  anxiety  to 
educate  their  children.  They  had  everywhere 
seized  upon  this  as  a  great  object  of  their  lives, 
as  the  one  thing  above  all  others  which  promised 
better  days  for  the  Israel  that  was  to  come.  And 
it  has  been  explained  how,  under  this  potent 
stimulus,  the  Jewish  children  all  over  Russia 
attained  a  remarkably  disproportionate  percentage 
of  proficiency  in  the  schools,  academies,  and 
universities  of  the  Empire. 

With  the  true  malignity  of  genius  which  makes 
a  grand  inquisitor,  Pobiedonostseff  struck  at  the 
heretic  Jews  through  these  children  for  whom 
ithey  were  sacrificing  so  much.  For  several  years 
before  experimental  measures  in  this  direction  had 
been  ventured  upon.  First,  the  number  of 
Israelitish  students  to  be  admitted  to  the  Military 
Academy  for  Medicine  was  limited  to  5  per  cent, 
of  the  entire  number.  (This,  it  maybe  said  in 
passing,  turned  out  to  have  been  a  preliminary 
step  toward  the  complete  exclusion  by  law  of 
Jewish  physicians  from  the  army,  which  is  now  an 
accomplished  fact.)  Next,  similar  restrictions 
were  placed  upon  the  proportion  of  Jewish 
students  in  the  Mining  Institute  and  the  Engineer- 
ing Institute  for  Public  Roads.  Shortly  after,  the 
number  of  Jewish  boys  allowed  to  study  in  the 
Institute  of  Civil  Engineers  was  cut  down  to  3  per 
cent,  and  the  doors   of  the  Veterinary  Institute 


THE    HOLY   SYNOD   AT   WORK  155 

at  Kharkoff,  the  only  school  of  its  kind  in  Russia, 
were  shut  in  their  faces  altogether. 

It  may  be  imagined  with  what  dismay  Jewish 
parents  saw  one  professional  avenue  of  escape 
from  the  orhetto  after  another  beinof  thus  closed 
to  their  children.  But  this  was  mere  play — the 
cold-blooded  toying  of  a  cat  with  a  mouse — by 
comparison  with  what  was  to  follow. 

On  December  5,  1886,  and  on  June  26,  1887, 
the  Czar  signed  two  edicts  which  together  gave 
the  Minister  of  Public  Education  the  power  tc 
restrict  the  number  of  Jewish  pupils  in  everj 
school,  primary,  advanced,  technical,  and  the  rest,! 
throughout  the  Empire.  This  Minister,  Delianoff,^ 
who  had  only  recently  been  elevated  to  the  post 
by  the  influence  of  Pobiedonostseff,  and  was  then, 
as  he  has  been  ever  since,  acting  wholly  under 
the  guidance  of  the  Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod, 
took  prompt  advantage  of  this  Imperial  warrant. 
He  issued  an  order  defining  the  maximum  number 
of  Jewish  youths  hereafter  to  be  admitted  to  any 
and  all  the  schools  of  Russia,  from  the  most 
elementary  grade  up  to  the  universities.  Inside 
the  Pale  they  were  never  to  constitute  more  than 
10  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number  of  pupils  ;  every- 
where outside  the  Pale,  with  two  exceptions,  they 
werv^  to  be  restricted  to  5  per  cent.  The  exceptions 
were  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow,  where  3  percent, 
was  to  be  the  rule.  This  order  remains  to  this  day 
the  law,  and  M.  Delianoft",  who  issued  it,  figures 
now  in  the  "  Almanach  de  Gotha  "  as  a  Count. 


156  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

The  full  significance  of  this  barbaric  measure 
can  only  be  realised  when  it  is  remembered  that 
in  eighty-two  towns  of  the  Pale  the  Jews  were 
imore  than  half  the  inhabitants,  and  in  four 
!  towns  constituted  over  80  per  cent,  of  the  popula- 
tion— and  that,  too,  in  1884,  before  the  latest 
crusade  had  chased  literally  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  other  Jews  into  these  towns.  It  means,  for  ex- 
ample, that  in  towns  like  Mohilef,  where,  roughly 
speaking,  there  are  3000  Christians  and  47,000 
Jews,  only  one  Jewish  boy  can  attend  school  for 
every  nine  Christian  boys  who  have  been  entered 
as  pupils.  There  would  be  in  this  town  of  a 
school  age,  say,  600  Christians  and  8000  Jewish 
youths.  Even  if  we  assume  that  every  one  of  the 
former  class  went  to  school,  (which,  of  course,  is 
in  Russia  a  wholly  fantastic  hypothesis,)  we  would 
have  only  sixty-six  Hebrew  lads  entitled  to  even 
the  rudiments  of  a  public  education — and  the 
terrible  corollary  of  7934  others  forbidden  to  go 
to  school  at  all. 

I  have  chosen  for  illustration  the  extreme  case, 
so  far  as  the  proportion  of  Jews  in  a  town  is  con- 
cerned.    But  when  we  consider  that  only  a  very 
Itiny   section    of  the    "  Christian "    population    of 
I  Russia  ever  dream  of  sending  their  children  to 
school,  whereas  the  poorest  Jews  make  that  the 
chief  purpose  of  their  lives,  the  illustration  ceases 
r  to  be  exaggerated.      To  render  the  Jews  depend- 
1  ent  for  educational  facilities  upon  the  schoolgoing 
\  propensities  of  the  least  ambitious  and  most  sloth- 


THE    HOLY   SYNOD    AT   WORK  157 

fully  ignorant  population  in  Europe  was  practically 
to  debar  them  from  education  altogether.  \ 

This  whole  matter  of  education  in  Russia  pre-  V/ 
sents  an  aspect  of  the  Russo-Jewish  question 
which  the  Americans,  English,  and  Germans, 
above  all  other  peoples,  will  find  instructive  and 
impressive.  Indifferent  to  learning  as  the  great 
bulk  of  the  Russian  peasantry  and  lower  classes 
are,  they  show  more  fondness  for  the  schools  than 
do  their  rulers.  We  have  in  Russia  the  absolutely 
unique  spectacle  of  a  Government  exerting  its 
powers  to  prevent  its  own  Orthodox  people  ob- 
taining an  education.  Since  1887  almost  every 
year  has  brought  its  administrative  order  directing 
further  restrictions  upon  the  admission  of  pupils. 
Only  a  few  months  ago  I  was  told  in  St.  Peters- 
burg of  a  new  regulation,  under  way,  which  would 
make  it  practically  impossible  for  the  child  of  any 
poor  man  in  Russia  to  get  into  school  at  all. 
\  Doubtless  these  reactionary  measures  had  their 
origiain-the  conviction  that  education  was  respon- 
sible for  Nihilism.  But,  once  started,  this  backward 
march  m  school  matters  became  quickly  merged 
in  the  general  barbaric  retrograde  movement. 
The  gloomy  and  wooden-headed  despotism  which 
is  tearing  down  theatres  in  St.  Petersburg,  which 
suppresses  hews,  songs,  and  literature  alike,  which 
treats  as  criminals  and  outcasts  all  who  decline  to 
worship^relics  and  sacred  pictures,  which  has  re- 
stored the  knout,  and  which  to-day  refuses  to  allow 
private   charity   to    intervene  between   its  stupid 


158  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

helplessness  and  the  terrors  of  a  great  famine — it 
is  not^,_straflge  that  this  despotism  dislikes  schools. 

It  only  adds  to  the  grotesque  and  savage  im- 
becility of  the  thing  to  learn  that  this  order  limit- 
ing the  percentage  of  Jewish  pupils  in  schools  was 
accompanied  by  another  sharply  reducing  the 
number  of  Christian  children  who  might  thereafter 
be  received,  the  effect  being,  of  course,  to  stili  fur- 
ther cut  down  the  Jewish  percentage. 

Credulity  fairly  staggers  under  the  additional 
fact  that  when  the  Jews,  after  their  first  shock  of 
amazement,  meekly  begged  permission  to  estab- 
lish more  schools  for  their  young  at  their  own 
expense,  they  were  met  with  a  refusal. 

There   were   at    this   time    (1887)   some    1200 
Jewish  schools,  with  a  total  attendance  of  28,226 
pupils.     Of  these  schools  ^^   were  more  or  less 
supported   by   the    State ;    the    rest    were    small 
private  classes,   quite  often  for  technical  instruc- 
tion, with    an   average    attendance    of  about    20 
children.     These  schools  have  now  almost  wholly 
disappeared,  in  the  convulsions  and  disorder  of  the 
past    two  years.      From    their  environment,  and 
the     hopeless    conditions    surrounding    the   race 
which    supported    and    filled    them,    it    may    be 
» imagined  that  they   never  reached  a  high  plane 
]  [of  excellence ;  indeed,  they  were   in  many  cases 
J  Im.erely  a  Russo-Jewish  adaptation  of  the  old  Irish 
Ihedge  school. 

^ucn   as  they  were,    however,    the   Jews  were 
prepared   to   multiply  their   number  and    assume 


THE    HOLY    SYNOD   AT   WORK  159 

the  entire  expense  of  the  education  of  their 
young.  No  poverty  -  stricken  and  oppressed 
people  could  have  proposed  a  heavier  self-sacrifice. 
Rich  Hebrews  in  other  lands  backed  up  this 
offer  by  tenders  of  assistance  —  Baron  Hirsch, 
for  example,  proffering  a  donation  of  $10,000,000 
to  found  technical  schools  and  institutes  for  the 
Russo-Jevvish  youth.  In  some  few  instances 
these  offers  were  accepted.  Philanthropic  Jews 
were  allowed  to  build  a  technical  school  at 
Vinitza  and  a  mining  institute  at  Gorlovka,  both 
avowedly  for  the  education  of  Jewish  boys.  But 
when  they  were  opened,  the  Government  coolly 
stepped  in  and  compelled  them  to  admit  nine 
Christian  youths  in  one  case,  nineteen  in  the 
other,  for  every  Jewish  pupil.  Much  more 
numerous  were  the  instances  in  which  the  officials 
took  the  money  offered  by  the  Jews  for  the 
establishment  of  Jewish  schools,  and  frankly  put 
it  in  their  own  pockets. 

These  were  mere  local  variations.  The  Min- 
ister of  Public  Instruction,  so  far  as  the  central 
authority  went,  refused  the  petition  of  the  Jews 
to  be  allowed  to  build  schools  of  their  own. 
With  fine  Oriental  irony  he  invited  their  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  new  order  limiting  Jewish 
scholars  to  a  small  percentage  of  the  whole 
number  was  really  in  the  interest  and  for  the 
protection  'oTthe  Jews,  inasmuch  as  it  now  for 
the  first  time_c«fficially  guaranteed  their  right  to 
any  share    whatever  in   public  school  education. 


i6o  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

Even    Torquemada  enjoyed  his  little  joke,  they 
say. 

To  preserve  a  historical  balance,  it  is  important 
to  note  that  this  first  great  anti- Jewish  blow  struck 
by  Pobiedonostseff  was  coincident  with  the  open- 
ing of  the  Lutheran  persecution  in  the  Baltic 
provinces.  ,  fiTthe  autumn  of  1886,  just  about  the 
time  that  the  Council  of  Ministers  was  drafting  the 
edicts  mentioned  above,  the  Czar's  brother,  the 
Grand  Duke  Vladimir,  visited  Riga,  and  with 
his  characteristic  brutality  of  frankness  publicly 
warned  the  German  populations  of  Courland  and 
Livonia  that  it  had  been  decided  completely  to 
Russianise  them,  peaceably  if  possible,  but  with 
any  extremity  of  roughness  if  force  became  neces- 
sary. And  in  the  spring  of  the  following  year 
the  Ministerial  order  on  Jewish  education,  or 
rather  non-education,  synchroniseH^  with  the 
arbitrary  edicts  which  forbade  the  German 
Lutheran  pastors  in  the  Baltic  provinces  longer 
to  teach  or  control  the  schools  thsy^-^had  built, 
and  which  changed  the  language  in  those  schools 
from  GermaiT^  Russian,  prohibited  the  use  of 
German  oiT^the  railways,  and  decreed  the  re- 
modelling  of  the  University  of  Dorpat  over  into 
a  Russian~mstitution . 

As  we  go  further  we  shall  see  the  savage 
crusade  against  the  Jews  linked  at  every  step 
with  cruelties  or  treacherous  wrongs  perpetrated 
upon  other  non-Orthodox  people  living  under  the 
shadow  of  Czardom — now  the  proscription  of  the 


THE    HOLY   SYNOD   AT    WORK  i6i 

Stundists,  now  the  priest-hunts  in  Catholic  Poland, 
now  the  exiling  of  the  Molokani,  now  the  shame- 
less and  excuseless  betrayal  of  Finland — all  parts 
of  one  orreat  barbaric  scheme. 

The  Ministerial  order  of  early  1887,  closing  the 
schools  to  all  but  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of 
Jewish  youths,  was  a  sufficient  hint  to  all  the 
officials,  big  and  little,  throughout  Russia,  who 
desired  either  to  win  favour  in  the  highest  circles 
or  make  a  little  money  for  themselves  by  harrying 
the  Jews.  That  the  persecution  did  not  at  once 
become  creneral  seems  to  have  been  due  to  the 
restraining  influence  of  Count  Dmitri  Tolstoi, 
who,  as  Minister  of  the  Interior,  to  the  last 
managed  to  keep  his  head  above  the  advancing 
tide  of  Pobiedonostseff"'s  authority.  In  May  of 
1889  Tolstoi  died,  and  thereafter  nobody  has  so 
much  as  tried  to  stand  up  against  the  Procurator 
of  the  Holy  Synod. 

But  even  before  Tolstoi's  death,  in  fact  from 
the  date  of  the  education  order,  the  lynx-eyed 
underlings  scattered  over  the  Empire  had  seen 
well  enough  how  thingfs  were  driftinof.  While 
they  to  some  extent  pretended  to  please  their 
immediate  master,  the  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
the  spirit  of  all  their  actions  was  dedicated  to  the 
rising  power,  Pobiedonostseff  Evidently  the  best 
way  to  please  him  was  to  squeeze  the  heretic. 
Thus  it  happens  that,  while  the  years  from  1883 
to  1890  are  ordinarily  thought  of  as  an  interval 
interposed  between  two  outbursts  of  militant  anti- 

L 


1 62  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

Semitism,  the  truth  is  that  the  Kill  really  covered 
only  two  or  three  years,  and  that  the  persecution 
whose  horrors  have  finally  aroused  civilisation 
began  in  1887. 

The  change  Vv^hich  came  over  the  attitude  of 
the  provincial  authorities  when  they  grasped  the 
fact  that  Pabiedonostseff  was  the  rising  man,  and 
that  he  was  hostile  to  the  jews,  showed  itself  at 
first  by  a  revived  activity  in  enforcing  the  long 
dormant  and  disused  May  laws.  As  I  have  said, 
these  laws  were  limited  in  their  jurisdiction  to  the 
Pale.  Accordingly,  everybody  in  uniform  began 
busily  hustling  such  Jews  as  still  remained  in 
the  country  parts  of  the  fifteen  prescribed  govern- 
ments off  their  land  and  into  the  towns,  and 
either  arresting  or  blackrnajling  any  Israelites  who 
dared  to  appear  in  the  market-places  of  the  Pale 
on  Sunday. 

This  Sunday  prohibition,  which  last  autumn 
brought  about  the  terrible  riot  at  Starodoub,  with 
the  usual  accompaniment  of  Jewish  lives  lost  and 
Jewish  shops  and  houses  plundered  and  burned, 
is  one  of  the  most  characteristic  features  of  the 
anti- Jewish  laws.  The  Hebrews,  of  course, 
religiously  abstain  from  labour  on  Saturday.  It 
was  considered  by  Ignatieff  an  extremely  smart 
trick  to  forbid  them  to  do  business  on  Sunday  as 
well. 

In  its  essence,  this  meant  that  the  Jews  could 
only  have  five  earning  days  against  other  people's 
seven.     Although    there  are   laws  on   the  books 


THE    HOLY   SYNOD   AT   WORK  163 

prohibiting  Christian  labour  or  business  on 
Sunday,  they  are  a  complete  dead  letter.  Every 
traveller  in  Russia  knows  that  Sunday  in  the 
markets  and  business  streets  differs  in  no  respect 
from  any  other  day,  save  that  there  are  no  Jews 
about.  Having-  remained  idle  on  Saturday  for 
their  own  Sabbath,  they  are  compelled  to  observe 
Sunday  for  the  Christian  Sabbath — the  while  the 
Christian  himself  works  or  barters  from  morning 
till  night,  and  the  market  places  are  filled  as  well 
with  Tartars,  Gipsies,  and  Persians,  whom  no  one 
molests. 

This  renewed  driving  of  the  rural  Jews  into  the 
towns,  already  overcrowded,  and  this  arbitrary 
curtailment  of  their  chances  of  earning  a  livelihood 
soon  produced  most  melancholy  results.  In  every 
■civilised  country  the  Hebrew  has  a  lower  death 
rate  and  makes  a  better  showingf  in  vital  statistics 
generally  than  the  rest  of  the  community.  This 
fact,  whether  it  be  due  to  unique  dietary  laws,  to 
■exceptional  supervision  over  marriages,  or  what- 
ever other  cause,  remains  a  fact.  In  Russia  alone 
this  has  not  been  the  case.  Insufficient  food, 
wretched  shelter,  overwork,  and  the  ceaseless 
strain  and  terror  of  a  hunted  animal  have  made 
him  from  the  beginning  a  degenerate  creature 
physically. 

Yet  even  in   Russia,  up  to  the  enforcement  of 
the  May  Laws,  it  was  supposed  that  Jews  never 
suffered  from  ^phthisis.     Throughout  the  reigns  of        '$ 
Nicholas  and  Alexander  II  the  army  examiners 


1 64  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

found  no  traces  of  this  disease  among  the  Jewish 
recruits.  Very  soon,  however,  after  the  Holy 
Synod  began  the  completion  of  Ignatieffs  work, 

\and  the  swarming  ghetto  in  each  dirty,  ill-built, 
undrained,  half-starving  town  of  the  Pale  saw  with 
horror  new  crowds  of  homeless  and  destitute  Jews 
being  hounded  in,  to  deepen  the  prevailing  misery 
and  share  the  fight  for  bread  from  day  to  day, 
there  was  a  different  story  to  tell.  The  rejections 
for  phthisis,  from  nothing  at  all,  rose  to  6.5  per 
cent,  among  Jewish  recruits,  against  0.5  per  cent, 
among  all  other  Russians.  Other  maladies  kept 
almost  equal  pace  in  ravaging  these  crowded 
quarters  of  hunger  and  helpless  squalor.  On  the 
score  of  general  physical  unfitness,  the  rejections 
among  Jewish  youths  of  the  conscription  age 
mounted  to  61.7  per  cent,  against  27.2  among  the 
other  recruits  examined. 

In  the  very  latest  drawing  of  recruits,  that  of 
January  1892,  only  6  per  cent,  of  the  Jewish 
youths  who  presented  themselves  for  the  tirage 
passed  the  medical  examiners,  while  of  the 
Russians  65  per  cent,  w^ere  accepted. 

'  These  figures  furnish  a  ghastly  comment  upon 
the  Russian  plea  that  their  Jews  are  all  rich 
usurers. 

It  may  be  imagined  that  in  this  outburst  of  offi- 
cial hostility  not  very  strict  attention  was  paid  to 
keeping  within  the  laws  which  it  was  pretended  to 
enforce.  As  has  been  explained,  every  tchinovnik 
is  his  own  law.     Villages  consisting  almost  wholly 


THE    HOLY    SYNOD   AT   WORK  165 

of  Jews  were  ransacked  to  find  those  of  the  race 
whose  residence  did  not  date  back  prior  to  May 
1882,  and  these  were  all  incontinently  packed  off 
to  the  towns.  In  this  search  many  were  found 
who  had  been  born  on  the  spot  in  the  sixties  or 
earlier,  but  who  had  no  papers  to  prove  it ;  off 
they  went  with  the  others.  Again,  there  were 
cases  of  artisans,  resident  in  one  of  these  villages 
all  their  lives,  who  went  for  a  week  or  a  month  to 
some  other  place  for  work ;  on  their  return  they 
were  treated  as  new-comers,  their  former  residence 
being  ignored.  This  happened  to  soldiers  return- 
ing from  service  to  their  native  village.  An 
instance  is  recorded  of  a  man  living  all  his  life 
in  the  village  of  Palitzki  who  was  absent  five 
days  to  get  married,  and  on  coming  back  to  his 
home  was  driven  out  as  a  stranger  having  no 
domicile. 

I  could  fill  a  chapter  with  incidents  of  this  kind, 
many  of  them  related  to  me  by  the  victims  them- 
selves in  Hamburg,  Berlin,  Konigsberg,  or  here 
in  London.  But  there  is  too  much  else  of  even  a 
more  painful  sort  to  tell. 

These  were  not  the  only  tricks  to  which  resort 
was  had.  The  wliole  gamut  of  barefaced  knavery 
was  swept.  To  take  one  among  a  throng  of  ex- 
amples, the  immediate  suburbs  of  large  towns  had 
heretofore,  for  municipal  and  other  purposes,  been 
treated  as  parts  of  the  towns  themselves.  Now 
these  were  decreed  to  be  villages,  and  all  the  Jews 
accordingly  driven  out  of  them  into'  the   densely 


1 66  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

packed  pest-holes  of  the  towns.  Impudence  even 
went  so  far  as  to  deny  that  Reshilovko,  a  place 
which  had  long  been  styled  in  all  official  docu- 
ments as  a  town,  was  a  town  at  all,  and  in  its 
new  and  arbitrarily-acquired  character  as  a  village 
all  the  Jews  had  to  leave  it  within  forty-eight 
hours. 

What  has  thus  far  been  related  happened,  be  it 
remembered,  in  the  Pale,  and  between  the  years 
1 886  and  1890.  Up  to  this  latter  date  no  attempt 
was  made  openly  to  revoke  the  permission  of 
Alexander  II,  in  1865,  under  which  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  Jewish  artisans,  clerks,  and  others 
had  moved  eastward  out  of  the  Pale,  and  made 
homes  for  themselves  all  over  Russia  proper. 

The  difficulties  under  which  these  people 
laboured,  even  in  the  palmy  days  of  the  golden 
age,  have  been  described  in  a  preceding  chapter. 
Naturally  enough,  such  a  fierce  persecution  could 
not  break  forth  in  the  Pale  without  some  of  its 
effects  being  felt  by  the  luckier  Jews  outside. 
These  effects  took  many  whimsical  forms,  accord- 
ing to  the  fancy  of  the  Governor,  the  needs  of  the 
police,  or  the  feelings  of  the  population  in  each 
separate  Government.  In  some  gubernia  the 
Jews  experienced  nothing  more  than  a  perceptible 
accession  of  rigour  in  examining  their  passports 
and  guild  warrants;  in  others,  they  began  to  be 
treated  almost  as  if  the  protecting  laws  of  1S65 
had  been  annulled. 


THE    HOI.V    SYNOD    AT    WORK  167 

These  laws,  it  will  be  remembered,  permitted 
Jewish  artisans  to  settle  wherever  they  liked  in 
Russia  upon  the  condition  of  proving  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  local  trade  guild  their  proficiency 
in  their  handicraft.  But,  as  I  have  said  before, 
law  in  Russia  is  strictly  a  matter  of  construction. 
The  same  official  will  interpret  the  same  law  in 
three  different  and  contradictory  ways  in  as  many 
hours  if  it  seems  important  to  do  so.  Accordingly 
the  more  active  and  unscrupulous  Governors, 
Judges,  and  Chiefs  of  Police,  sniffing  the  eager  air 
of  persecution  blowing  straight  over  the  steppes 
from  St.  Petersburg,  now  all  at  once  discovered 
that  this  word  "  artisan "  ought  to  be  looked 
into.  The  law  said  "  artisans" — ah  yes,  but  who 
were  artisans  ? 

The  mere  hint  was  enough.  The  Governor  of 
Smolensk  led  off  by  deciding  that  butchers,  bakers, 
vinegar  manufacturers,  and  even  glaziers,  were 
not  properly  artisans.  Many  of  these  crafts  had 
been  living  for  years  in  Smolensk  without  the 
slightest  hint  of  doubt  as  to  their  legal  status  ; 
now  they  were  all  incontinently  sent  packing. 
The  Senate  was  appealed  to  in  the  matter  of  the 
vinegar-makers  and  decided  that  they  undoubtedly 
were  artisans.  This  made  no  difference ;  the 
declaration  of  the  local  artificers'  guilds  to  the 
contrary  continued  to  be  a  better  authority. 

Very  strange  results  were  obtained  by  this  out- 
break of  provincial  definitions  of  the  word  artisan. 


i68  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

In  one  Government  for  example,  musicians  and 
cooks  would  be  decided  to  be  good  artisans,  while 
pavers  and  coachmen  would  be  excluded.  Perhaps 
in  the  adjoining  Government  the  rule  would  be 
exactly  reversed.  Moreover,  a  handworker  might 
be  assured  of  his  regularity  one  week  and  be 
visited  by  the  police  the  next,  because  in  the 
meantime  the  status  of  his  trade  had  altered  in  the 
minds  of  the  local  authorities. 

On  a  large  number  of  the  private  railways  of 
Russia  the  bulk  of  the  engine-drivers  were  Jews. 
They  had  in  fact  almost  as  closely  a  monopoly  in 
this  employment  as  Scotchmen  are  said  to  enjoy 
as  steamship  engineers.  They  had  obtained  this 
because  they  were  found  to  be  soberer,  more 
active  and  intelligent,  and  more  to  be  depended 
upon,  than  the  moujik.  A  secret  circular  was 
now  sent  out,  informing  the  railway  companies 
that  engine-drivers  were  not  artisans  and  that 
their  Jewish  employees  must  go.  And  of  course 
go  they  did. 

In  Moscow  twenty-four  Jewish  compositors 
were  expelled  upon  the  decision  that  printing  was 
not  a  trade,  but  an  art ! 

So  matters  went  on  into  the  year  1890,  the 
position  of  the  Jews  becoming  more  and  more 
intolerable  as  the  spirit  of  the  Holy  Synod  more 
fully  permeated  the  ramified  branches  of  the 
bureaucracy.  It  was  reported  about  that  the 
Czar   regarded   the   escape   alive  of  himself  and 


THE    HOLY    SYNOD    AT    WORK  169 

family  from  the  terrible  railway  accident  at  Borki 
as  the  direct  and  miraculous  intervention  of 
Providence.  The  facts  were  that  the  imperial 
train  was  being  driven  at  the  rate  of  ninety  versts 
an  hour  over  a  road  calculated  to  withstand  at  the 
utmost  a  speed  of  thirty-five  versts ;  that  the 
engineer  humbly  warned  the  Czar  of  the  danger, 
and  was  gruffly  ordered  to  go  still  faster  if  possible  ; 
and  that  the  miracle  would  have  been  the  avoid- 
ance of  calamity.  But  facts  don't  get  about  in 
Russia,  or  pass  unrecognised  if  they  do.  What 
was  apparent  was  that  a  great  devotional  mood 
had  seized  upon  the  Czar  and  the  Court  circles. 
The  contagion  spread  like  wildfire  :  in  a  twinkling 
officials,  soldiers,  policemen,  traders,  moujiks, 
flocked  to  the  churches,  cabmen  blocked  the 
streets  in  front  of  shrines  to  make  their  obeisances 
from  the  driver's  box,  and  the  country  roads  were 
populated  once  more  with  concourses  of  tramping 
pilgrims. 

It  was  in  the  heifjht  of  this  sentimental  religious 
fervour  that  reports  leaked  out  about  the  Govern- 
ment's intention  to  revoke  the  guarantees  of  1865, 
and  put  the  May  laws  in  force  all  over  the  Empire. 
Copies  of  the  proposed  edicts  were  obtained, 
smuggled  out  over  the  frontier,  and  published  to 
the  world.  The  Holy  Synod  stopped  counting 
its  beads  long  enough  to  issue  a  categorical  denial 
that  any  such  measure  had  ever  been  discussed, 
and  Russian  Ambassadors  at  foreign  Courts  were 


lyo  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

instructed  to  give  solemn  assurances  that  the  report 
was  pure  invention. 

When  they  had  Hed  long  enough,  the  edicts 
which  they  swore  had  never  existed  even  in 
thought  were  promulgated,  a  It  was  a  triumph 
of  mediceval  barbarism.  Everj^^vRere  throughout 
Russia  It  Was  understood  that,  to  celebrate  God's 
protection  of  the  Czar  at  Borki,  there  was  to  be  a 
burnt-oftering  of  Jews. 


H.I.H.    THE    GRAND     DUKE    SERGE 


CHAPTER   X 

THE    APPOINTMENT    OF    SERGE 

The  whole  year  of  1890  was  clouded,  as  has 
been  said,  by  reports  of  new  and  savage  laws 
about  to  be  decreed  against  the  Jews.  In  July 
the  Times  published  in  London,  from  its  accom- 
plished St.  Petersburg  correspondent,  Mr.  George 
Dobson,  what  turned  out  to  be  a  tolerably  accurate 
forecast  of  these  projected  laws.  The  statement 
was  solemnly  denied  by  Russian  officials,  as  were 
all  other  rumours  of  prospective  persecution,  but 
through  the  indiscretion  or  venality  of  local  ad- 
ministrators it  became  known  that  these  denials 
were  lies  made  out  of  whole  cloth.  It  was  dis- 
covered that  a  series  of  questions  had  been 
addressed  to  the  provincial  Governors  by  the 
Minister  of  the  Interior,  each  asking  an  expression 
of  opinion  upon  some  proposed  new  penalty  or 
increased  restriction,  and  that  an  overwhelming 
majority  of  these  Governors  had  hastened  to 
express  admiring  approval  of  these  barbarous 
propositions.  No  other  answers,  of  course,  could 
have  been  expected.  To  prevent  ambiguity  in 
the  replies,  the  intended  acts  of  oppression  had 
been  carefully  specified.     All  the  Governors  had 


172  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

to  do  was  to  copy  these  and  say  "  Yes  "  to  them. 
Then  they  were  laid  before  the  Czar  as  the 
recommendations  of  his  official  deputies  through- 
out the  Empire. 

I  have  said  that  their  assent  was  a  matter  of 
course.  In  the  first  place,  every  new  oppressive 
law  increases  the  chances  for  gain  to  the  Governor 
and  all  his  creatures ;  inquiry  as  to  his  approval 
in  such  a  case  is  like  askincj  an  official  in  another 
country  whether  he  would  like  an  increase  of 
salary.  More  important  still,  an  interrogatory  of 
this  kind  is  a  plain  indication  of  what  the  central 
authority  wants — and  to  discover  this  and  satisfy 
it  is  the  controlling  passion  of  every  Russian 
official's  abreast. 

One  of  the  Governors  did,  however,  salve  his 
conscience — perhaps  also  his  pocket — by  revealing 
the  text  of  these  Ministerial  inquiries  to  the  Jews. 
It  may  be  said  in  passing  that  there  are  to  this 
day  scores  of  officials  in  Russia  who  are  openly 
fervent  Jew-baiters,  yet  who  secretly  provide 
information  of  this  kind  to  the  Hebrew  com- 
munity for  pay. 

Other  Governors,  being  informed  by  these 
inquiries  of  the  intentions  of  the  Ministry,  began 
at  once  to  act  as  if  the  suggestions  which  they 
had  approved  were  already  laws.  (  In  October  the 
second  anniversary  of  the  Czar  s  escape  from 
death  at  Borki  was  celebrated,  and  stories  were 
circulated  to  the  effect  that  the  Czar  Jhad  received 
personal  revelations  as  to  the  intervention  of  God 


THE   APPOINTMENT   OF   SERGE  173 

to  save  his  life.  \The  ignorant,  drunken,  and 
greedy  village  priests,  who  had  now  obtained  a 
welcome  addition  to  theirjncomes  by  having  been 
given  control  over  the  primary  schools,  eagerly 
circulated  these  tales,  and"  built  up  the  wildest  and 
most  fantastic  concoctions  of  miraculous  visions 
with  which  to  further  darken  the  poor  wits  of  the 
superstitious  peasan^y.^ 

The  Czar  himself  seems  to  have  been  affected 
by  the  outburst  of  fanatical  orthodox  excitement 
which  this  Borki  anniversary  precipitated.  I  have 
been  told  by  a  trustworthy  man,  who  himself  saw 
the  document  referred  to,  this  story  in  illustration. 
An  influential  Russian  dignitary,  with  brains 
enough  to  see  what  stupid  mischief  Russia  was 
doing  herself,  contrived  to  have  put  into  the  Czar's 
own  hands  a  memorial  tersely  setting  forth  the 
actual  facts  of  the  Jewish  question,  recounting  the 
miseries  inflicted  upon  helpless  and  unoffending 
people,  and  showing  how  inevitably  this  criminal 
folly  must  react  upon  the  Empire.  Alexander  III 
read  the  paper  carefully  and  wrote  on  the  maro-in 
that  he  had  been  much  impressed  and  touched  by 
it.  "But,"  the  imperial  hand  added,  "we  must 
never  forget  that  it  was  the  Jews  who  crucified 
our  Lord  and  spilled  his  priceless  blood  ! " 

In  this  same  October,  a  score  of  Governors  in 
different  provinces,  apparently  by  some  malignant 
concert,  began  driving  out  all  the  Jews  who  had 
charge  of,  or  were  employed  in,  flour  mills.  In 
more  intelligent  times  they  had  been  drafted  into 


174  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

this  business — in  fact  given  a  practical  monopoly 
of  it — for  the  sole  reason  that  they  were  the  only 
people  who  knew  enough  to  conduct  it.  Now,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  without  them  the  flour  mills 
would  have  to  be  closed,  they  were  all  expelled  on 
the  plea  that  they  were  not  artisans.  Itjs^o  in- 
credible idiocies  of  this  sort  that  the  famines  in 
Russia  are  largely  due.  jIn  1887,  Mr.  Bering, 
Secretary  of  the  BritislTlEmbassy  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, reported  that  there  had  been  "permanent 
famine"  since  1866  in  148  out  of  the  625  adminis- 
trative districts  of  Russia,  and  that  in  7 1  of  these 
alone  there  were  300,000  chronic  paupers.  ^-4t~was 
in  these  districts  that  many  of  the  flour  mills  were 
now  closed,  on  account  of  the  Crucifixion  ! 

The  public  notoriety  of  the  St.  Petersburg  ex- 
pulsions dates  from  this  same  fateful  October  of 
1890.  They  had  really  been  going  on  for  a  year 
or  two,  but  so  quietly  as  to  have  escaped  general 
notice.  To  this  day  it  is  practically  impossible  to 
get  information  about  the  clearance  of  the  Jews 
from  the  capital  on  the  Neva.  I  have  obtained 
some  figures  to  be  printed  in  their  proper  place  in 
the  narrative  ;  but  they  had  to  be  compiled  from 
the  most  recondite  sources,  and  have  not  only 
never  been  published,  but  will  convey  novel  infor- 
mation to  the  St.  Petersburg  Jews  themselves. 
The  truth  is  that  the  Jews  of  St.  Petersburg  have 
never  had  any  organisation  or  cohesive  bond  of 
union.  They  scarcely  know  one  another  ;  they 
have  never  acted  together.     The  extent  to  which 


THE   APPOINTMENT   OF   SERGE  175 

this  is  true  of  Moscow  and  other  large  Russian 
cities  would  amaze  those  who  talk  so  glibly  about 
the  close  solidarity  and  trades-union  combinations 
of  the  Jewish  communities.  But  it  is  peculiarly 
the  case  in  St.  Petersburg. 

The  then  Chief  of  Police,  General  Groesser,  a 
curious,  not  to  say  comical,  despot,  about  whose 
whimsical  and  purely  savage  vagaries  a  volume 
might  be  written,  had  been  quietly  chasing  the 
Jews  out  for  a  long  time.  Now,  under  the  impulse 
of  this  new  craze  for  persecution,  he  began  to  issue 
public  orders  concerning  the  marked  men  of  the 
race.  For  example,  on  October  30  he  promulgated 
directions  that,  in  each  case  where  a  Hebrew  was 
sent  away  for  lack  of  residential  rights,  his  whole 
family  must  be  packed  off  with  him. 

The  Minister  of  War,  Vannoffsky,  was  not 
going  to  lag  behind  Dournovo,  Groesser,  and  the 
rest  in  putting  into  action  the  Czar's  pious  feelings. 
Military  orders  were  issued  directing  that  all  Jews 
should  be  driven  from  the  Caucasus,  to  prevent 
their  perverting  the  religious  faith  of  the  army  ! 

At  about  the  same  time  a  decree  from  the 
Minister  of  Instruction  extended  to  converted  or 
baptised  Jews  the  provisions  of  the  previous  law 
limiting  the  proportion  of  Jewish  students  to  be 
allowed  in  universities.  This  affected  a  large  class 
of  the  brightest  young  scholars  in  the  university 
towns,  who,  for  the  sake  of  pursuing  their  studies, 
had  made  the  sacrifice  of  formally  accepting 
Christianity  as  it  is  understood  in  Russia.     Now 


176  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

most  of  them  found  their  sacrifice  to  have  been  in 
vain — and  were  sharply  chased  back  into  the 
ghettos. 

In  the  succeeding  month,  a  ukase  was  issued 
ordering  that  in  the  future  no  Jew  should  be  bap- 
tised unless  his  entire  family  became  converts  at 
the  same  time.  This,  it  was  explained,  was  to 
circumvent  the  device  adopted  in  their  despair  by 
numerous  Hebrew  families  threatened  with  ruin 
and  enforced  exile — viz.,  of  sacrificing  one  male 
member  of  the  household  to  the  Christian  font  as 
a  kind  of  scapegoat,  and  then  enrolling  his  rela- 
tives as  his  servants,  so  that  all  might  remain. 
'  Concurrently  it  was  decreed  that  Jews  should 
no^briger  be  received  into  the  Catholic,  Lutheran, 
or  other  dissenting  folds,  but  must  be  baptised,  if 
at  all,  into  the  Orthodox  Church.  This  monopoly 
having^lDeen  given  to  the  Orthodox  priesthood, 
they  promptly  established  a  probationary  term  of 
six  months  for  would-be  converts  from  Judaism. 
Up  to  that  time  anybody  could  be  baptised  imme- 
diately upon  application,  and  many  stories  were 
afloat  like  that  of  the  great  banker,  Horwitz,  who 
is  said  to  have  once  been  warned  away  from  the 
Hotel  Dussaux  in  Moscow,  and  to  have  gone  out 
and  returned  within  the  hour  with  a  certificate  of 
baptism.  This  swiftness  of  procedure  was  made 
possible  by  the  rivalry  between  the  Lutheran  and 
the  Orthodox  pastors  for  baptismal  fees.  The 
moment  the  latter  were  given  a  monopoly  they  sat 
down  and  blackmailed  the  Jew  at  their  leisure. 


THE   APPOINTMENT   OF   SERGE  177 

This  question  of  the  "  conversion  "  of  Jews  is  a 
most  difficult  one  about  which  to  secure  facts  in 
Russia.  I  have  shown  in  previous  chapters  how 
strenuously  Nicholas  strove,  alike  by  forcible 
abduction  and  torture  and  by  bribes,  to  break 
down  Judaism  as  a  religion.  Everybody  will 
give  you  a  different  estimate  as  to  results. 
Russians  of  education  and  position  have  gravely 
assured  me  that  the  baptised  Jews  greatly  out- 
numbered those  who  remained  in  their  creed, 
which  of  course  is  absurd  nonsense.  But  the 
Russians  discover  and  suspect  Jews  now  every- 
where, as  Richard  1 1 1  saw  ghosts  in  his  tent  on 
Bosworth  Field.  Their  mania  for  this  is  like  that 
which  prompted  good  people  in  the  time  of  Eugene 
Sue's  "Wandering  Jew"  to  believe  that  every 
third  man  was  a  Jesuit  in  disguise. 

Jewish  authorities,  on  the  other  hand,  say  that 
the  "conversions"  have  been  on  an  average  only 
1300  per  year — or  something  like  .002  per  cent, 
of  adults. 

However  this  may  be,  the  formal  desertions 
from  Judaism  have  been  almost  wholly  confined 
to  the  educated  classes  and  to  residents  in  cities 
like  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow.  In  this  latter 
place,  of  which  I  saw  much  more  than  of  any 
other  Russian  city,  the  proportiorupf  "converts" 
has  always  been  exceptionally  large.  '^^The  story 
is  told  there  of  the  Lutheran  Church,  of  which  all 
the  officials,  beadles,  ushers,  and  the  like  were 
named  Blumenthal,  Rosenberg,  Morgenstern,  and 

■-—"  M 


178 


THE    NEW    EXODUS 


€ 


it 


4 


SO  on,  and  into  which,  one  Sunday  when  special 
services  hadT^awn  a  large  attendance,  a  Russian 
wag  strolled~'^wIth  his  hat  on.  The  "  baptised " 
dignitarie5;~sCandalised,  hurried  toward  him  with 
indignant  gestures.  "  Oh,  I  beg  pardon,"  he  said, 
looking  blandly  from  one  Semitic  face  to  another ; 
"  I  thought  I  was  in  a  synagogue." 
""Very  often,  in  the  two  great  cities  mentioned, 
one  will  find  Hebrew  families  in  which  the  parents 
hold  by  the  old  faith,  but  have  had  their  children 
baptised  as  communicants  in  the  English  church. 
Where  the  sons  are  destined  for  commerce,  this 
Anglican  connection  is  especially  valued.  In  such 
cases,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  the  claims 
of  religion  rest  lightly  on  both  parents  and  chil- 
dren. I  eQcount'"''^d  in  the  south  of  Russia  an 
elderly  ]ewishmerc^''^n^.  '^^^^  ^^d  lived  in  Alabama 
in  slavcn^ays.  and  b^d  ^"^^^q^'^ntly  gf^rverMn 
the  Confederate  nrmy.  T»]  tb^  q'lRJptest  imagin- 
able  jargon  of  jiddish,  German,  and  half-forgotten 

oke  "  in  the  cotton  belt,  he 
AArac   Viirtiself  too  oid  tn  rjianp^e  his— 

bin  innn  wp*"^  b^inr  br^^'^^^Tj^^ 
.up  as^Xhrfstrafls.  This  kindly  old  man  was 
almost  frantic  with  delight  when  he  learned  that 
I  was  a  Freemason.  It  was  many  years  since  he 
had  met  one  beM-e,  because  the  order  is  most 
sternly  forbidden  and  outlawed  in  Russia.  He 
wore_^  on  his  watch-chain,  however,  the  jewel  of 
tlieState  Lodge  of  Alabama,  and  confided  to  me 
that  the  Russians  were  far  too  ignorant  and  stupid 


English  "  as  she  is 
told  nie 


THE   APPOINTMENT   OF   SERGE  179 

to  ever  guess  that  it  was  a  masonic  emblem. 
After  this  subject  had  come  to  be  mentioned 
between  us,  it  was  absolutely  impossible  to  get 
him  to  talk  of  anything  else.  I  was  eager  to 
obtain  from  him  information  upon  events  in  his 
own  neighbourhood,  of  the  present  day.  To  my 
every  question  he  would  reply,  "  Oh,  mister,  the 
suffers  is  most  pitiful," — and  straightway  hark 
back  to  Masonry  on  the  Mississippi  "  befo'  the 
wah." J^e  told    me   that,   however  lackadaisical 


some  of  the  other  brethren  might  be,  he  used  to 
be  always  on  hand  before  his  lodge  was  opened. 
I  recall,  with  a  certain  effect  of  pathos,  how  he 
assured  me,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  that  the  dream 
of  his  life  was  to  sell  out  and  end  his  days  in  some 
country  where  he  could  attend  lodge  meetings 
every  afternoon.  In  his  long  solitude  he  had  so 
brooded  upon  masonic  recollections  that  they  had 
come  to  colour  all  his  views  of  nationality,  religion^ 
business,  even  existence  itself.  I  shall  never 
forget  how  his  countenance  fell  when  I  confessed 
to  him  that  in  England  one's  lodge  only  met  once 
a  month,  and  thaTeven  then  I  generally  forgot  to 
attend.J_ 

The  outbreak  of  administrative  persecution,  to 
which  allusion  has  been  made,  with  its  gloomy 
background  of  constantly  increasing  rumours  of 
fresh  oppressive  laws  to  come,  stirred  what  re- 
mained of  liberalism  in  Russia  to  protest. 

The  Novosti,  now  the  only  paper  of  importance 
which  had  not  joined  in  the  anti-Semitic  hue  and 


i8o  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

cry,  on  November  6,  1890,  reprinted  from  Katkoff's 
Russian  Messenger  oi  1858  a  curious  and  forgotten 
document,  the  resurrection  of  which  came  like  a 
slap  in  the  face  to  Alexander  III.  In  that  third 
year  of  the  reign  of  his  father,  "the  Liberator 
Czar,"  a  paper  called  Illustration  made  some 
casual  remark  which  was  considered  insulting  to 
the  Jews.  Thereupon  147  of  the  best-known 
Russian  authors,  poets,  journalists,  professors^ 
scientists,  &c.,  signed  a  protest  against  offensive 
allusions  of  this  kind.  In  this  list,  which  the 
Novosti  now  reprinted,  were  the  names  of  Turge- 
nieff,  Bestujeff,  Kostomaroff,  Kriloff,  Pogodin, 
Katkoff,  Aksakoff,  and  dozens  of  others  of  the 
first  rank  in  the  world  of  letters  and  of  thought. 
There  was  grim  satire  in  this  republication  of 
these  names,  which  the  censors  saw  and  appre- 
ciated enough  promptly  to  serve  the  Novosti  with 
a  first  warning. 

But  there  was  something  more  than  irony  in  the 
act.  It  became  known  that  the  reprinting  of  the 
1858  protest  was  in  the  nature  of  an  experiment 
preliminary  to  the  publication  of  a  protest  of  1 890, 
with  Count  Lyof  Tolstoi  leading  the  list  of  signa- 
tures. This  new  memorial  was  understood  to  be 
much  milder  in  tone  than  the  other,  and  to  have 
been  signed  by  practically  all  the  literary  and 
scientific  lights  of  the  empire.  I  say  "under- 
stood," because  it  was  never  orinted.  The  chief 
of  the  censor's  office,  M.  Feoktistoff,  sent  a  circular 
around    among    the    Russian    editors    forbidding 


THE   APPOINTMENT   OF   SERGE  i8r 

them,  under  the  severest  penalties,  to  publish 
what  he  termed  this  "impudent  and  senseless*' 
petition. 

It  was  characteristic  of  Russia  that  this  same 
Feoktistoff  had  himself  signed  the  infinitely  more 
vigorous  protest  of  1858. 

This  still-born  petition  was  the  last  discernible 
sign  of  Russian  Liberalism,  so  called.  In  the 
carnival  of  brute  force  which  ensued — this  terrible 
contest  between  autocracy  and  assassination  which 
the  world  still  watches  in  round-eyed  amazement — 
the  man  with  a  petition  had  no  place. 

What  is  now  going  on  in  Russia  is  so  awful 
that  we  forget  how  shocking  the  events  of  the 
winter  of  1890  seemed  at  the  time.  Nihilists 
were  being  tried  by  scores,  and  sentences  of  life- 
long imprisonment  or  exile  meted  out  right  and 
left.  One  murder  plot  after  another  was  revealed, 
or  invented — each  followed  by  a  cloud  of  arrests 
or  sequestrations.  Officers  high  in  the  army  and 
in  aristocratic  circles  shot  themselves  to  escape  a 
worse  fate.  Universities  were  closed,  and  hun- 
dreds of  students  dragged  off  to  jail. 

In  Poland  the  brute  Gourko  instituted  a  reio^n  of 
terror  novel  even  in  that  unhappy  land.  In  mid- 
winter 14,000  Polish  engineers,  conductors,  fire- 
men, and  mail  clerks  on  the  railways  were  sum- 
marily thrown  out  of  employment,  and  the  decree 
was  posted  up  that  henceforth  none  but  Russians 
should  be  allowed  to  work  on  Polish  railways. 
Simultaneously,     11,000    German    and    Austrian 


1 82  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

subjects,  clerks,  salesmen,  agents,  and  the  like 
employed  by  private  firms  throughout  Poland 
were  expelled  from  the  kingdom  without  warning 
and  without  excuse.  Poles  who  dared  to  comment 
upon  these  outrageous  measures  were  knouted  to 
death,  or  marched  publicly  in  chains  off  to  Siberia. 
The  huge  and  ever-increasing  Army  of  Occupa- 
tion— already  furnishing  in  Poland  one  soldier  for 
every  twelve  men,  women,  and  children  of  the 
civic  population — assumed  fresh  licence  to  plunder, 
maltreat,  and  outrage  the  people  in  imitation  of 
their  General.  Poles  cannot  trust  themselves  to 
talk  of  the  horrors  which  since  Christmas  of  1890 
have  been  their  portion.  There  are  no  words  for 
these  monstrous  deeds,  I  have  myself  been  told 
by  eye-witnesses,  by  relatives  of  the  victims, 
stories  of  the  treatment  of  gently-nurtured  Polish 
girls,  and  of  dutiful  and  irreproachable  Polish 
wives  and  mothers,  which  I  could  no  more  listen 
to  with  dry  eyes  than  they  could  relate  to  me 
uijiTioved. 

So  the  New  Year  came — ushering  in  the  year 
/four  Lord  1891 — destined  to  be  the  most  tragic 
fn  modern  Rtrsstan  history. 

While  rumour  was  still  busy  with  those  mys- 
terious anti-Semitic  laws  which  were  to  come,  a 
scattering  fire  of  minor  decrees  of  persecution  was 
maintained.  During  the  opening  months,  another 
Minister.  Manassein,  Minister  of  Justice,  joined 
the  group  who  had  already  prostituted  their  depart- 
ments to  the  savage  resolution  of  Pobiedonostseff, 


THE   APPOINTMENT   OF   SERGE  i83 

and  issued  an  order  that  no  more  Jewish  barristers 
should  be  admitted,  and  that  those  already  prac- 
tising should  be  expelled.  The  Jewish  paper,  the 
Voskhod,  was  suppressed.  General  Gourko  com- 
manded, apparently  out  of  pure  wantonness  of 
brutality,  that  hereafter  all  Jewish  recruits  in 
Poland  when  sent  to  be  examined  by  the  inspec- 
tion committees  should  be  marched  in  ^tape,  that 
is,  chained  together  like  criminals  and  in  the 
company  of  jail-birds.  There  is  rarely  lacking  a 
comic  side  to  these  things  in  Russia ;  in  early 
February  there  was  a  public  agitation  inside  the 
St.  Petersburg  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Animals  in  favour  of  having  the 
Society  interfere  with  "the  cruel  manner  in  which 
the  Jews  slaughter  cattle." 

It  was  vaguely  understood  at  this  time  that  one 
Minister,  Vishnegradsky,  was  standing  out  against 
the  final  declaration  of  a  Jewish  crusade.  This 
bright  manipulator  of  finance,  as  we  have  seen, 
did  not  owe  his  advancement  to  Pobiedonostseff. 
He  was  the  Czar's  own  selection.  The  rise  of 
M.  Vishnegradsky  is  curiously  characteristic  of 
his  country  and  his  race.  He  was  the  son  of  a 
poor  village  priest,  and  came  up  to  St.  Petersburg 
to  seek  his  fortune  w^ith  scarcely  the  traditional 
green  three-rouble  note  in  his  pocket.  He  was 
fortunate  enough  to  attract  the  attention  of  the 
Hebrew  banker,  Baron  Gunzburg,  and  in  this 
way  engrafted  himself  upon  the  great  railway  and 
contracting    projects    of    that     sanguine    period. 


i84  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

He  had  not  only  a  smart  eye  for  figures,  but  a 
ready  tongue  and  a  forehead  of  brass.  Even 
after  he  had  become  an  official,  and  was  a  wealthy 
man  to  boot,  he  used  to  be  retained  by  Messrs. 
Warschoffsky,  Horwitz,  and  other  great  pro- 
moters to  attend  meetings  of  railway  companies 
and  commercial  organisations  generally,  and  make 
speeches  in  favour  of  their  interests.  An  occasion 
was  mentioned  to  me  upon  which  his  fee  for  his 
services  was  15,000  roubles. 

A  friend  of  mine  in  St.  Petersburg,  an  elderly 
man  who  has  known  M.  Vishnegradsky  closely 
for  many  years,  assured  me  that,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  Dr.  Miquel,  he  regarded  the  Russian 
Minister  of  Finance  as  the  cleverest  administrator 
in  Europe.  But  in  his  position  he  does  not  rely 
upon  official  ability  alone.  "Vishnegradsky," 
said  my  friend,  **  is  very  sly.  He  saw  that 
Pobiedonostseff  created  a  great  impression  upon 
the  Czar  by  every  now  and  again  quoting  a  Bible 
text  in  his  conversation.  Now  when  Vishne- 
gradsky talks  with  the  Czar  he  quotes  two  texts 
where  the  Procurator  would  only  introduce  one. 
Thus  he  is  very  strong  with  the  Czar." 

The  Finance  Minister  need  not  have  been  so 
tremendously  clever  to  discern  the  monetary  and 
commercial  ruin  which  an  extreme  anti-Semitic 
policy  would  involve.  It  can  well  be  understood 
how,  for  the  credit  of  his  own  department,  he 
should  have  resisted  to  the  last  the  increasinsf 
pressure  of  the   forces  of  fanaticism,    intolerance, 


PRINCE     DOLGOROUKOFF 


THE   APPOINTMENT   OF    SERGE  185 

and  savage  lust  for  plunder  which  the  Grand 
Inquisitor  was  marshalling.  For  one  thing,  he 
was  just  bringing  to  a  successful  close  a  great 
State  loan,  to  be  negotiated  by  the  chief  Hebrew 
houses  of  Europe,  a  loan  which  should  crown  his 
administration  with  honour.  How  necessary  was 
it,  therefore,  to  keep  quiet  about  the  Jews  !  — 

On  April  7,  1891,  M,  Vishnegradsky  was  able 
to  announce  to  his  Imperial  master,  and  two  days 
later  to  the  public,  that  he  had  concluded  arrange- 
ments with  the  JRothschilds,  Bleichroder,  and 
another  Jewish  banking-house  for  a  loan  of 
6oo,ooo,ooof. 

One  might  well  believe  that  the  Czar  and  his 
Jew-baiting  Ministers  had  been  holding  their 
hands  till  this  announcement  could  be  made. 
Almost  on  the  morrow  the  blow  fell. 

Some  weeks  before,  it  had  been  announced 
that  the  Prince  Dolgoroukoff,  who  had  been 
Governor-General  of  the  Province  of  Moscow  for 
many  years,  and  who  was  spending  the  winter  in 
Paris,  had  retired  from  his  office,  and  that  his 
successor  would  be  the  Czar's  third  brother,  the 
Grand  Duke  Serge. 

At  the  time  the  excitement  over  Nihilist  plots 
and  the  open  turbulence  of  the  students  was  so 
great  that  it  was  said  and  believed  that  the  Czar 
intended  to  leave  St.  Petersburg  altogether,  and 
restore  Moscow  to  its  ancient  dignity  as  the  im- 
perial capital.  The  appointment  of  Serge  was 
explained    on   the  theory  that   he   was  going   to 


1 86  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

prepare  the  historic  seat  of  the  Muscovy  Czars 
against  the  coming  of  his  august  brother. 

The  true  story  of  the  appointment  is  quite  a 
different  affair.  It  has  never  been  told  in  print, 
and  it  is  so  vitally  connected  at  every  step  with 
the  most  painful  aspects  of  the  Jewish  persecution 
that  I  feel  no  apology  need  be  offered  for  briefly 
recounting  it  here. 

\  The  old  Governor-General,  Prince  Dolgorou- 
l^off,  was  a  very  characteristic  and  likeable  type  of 
the  best  that  the  ancient  Russian  aristocracy 
a!ffords.  A  descendant  of  Rurik,  the  head  of  a 
family  with  a  thousand  times  more  noble  Russian 
blood  than  flows  in  the  Imperial  veins,  and  which 
more  than  once  has  been  in  rivalry  with  the 
Romanoffs  for  the  throne  itself,  the  Prince  per- 
petuated in  his  person  the  distinctive  qualities  and 
traits  of  a  good  boyar.  Full  of  the  sense  of 
dignity  in  his  descent  and  his  office,  he  yet  gave 
courteous  audience  daily  to  all,  rich  and  poor  alike, 
who  had  the  slightest  claim  upon  his  time.  Al- 
though by  nature  luxurious,  perhaps  indolent,  he 
resolutely  forced  himself  to  supervision  of  every 
detail  of  his  official  duties.  He  was  specially 
watchful  in  keeping  his  subordinates  in  place,  and 
in  sharply  preventing  their  usurpation  of  the 
smallest  iota  of  his  powers  and  responsibilities.  In 
short,  he  was  such  a  Governor-General  as  very 
few  Russian  provinces  ever  had. 

He  was  queer  in  other  ways  For  one  thing 
he  was  honest.      Moreover,  he  liked  to  see  justice 


THE    APPOINTMENT   OF   SERGE  187 

done.  He  was  quite  capable  of  publicly  punish- 
ing and  humiliating  an  under-official  whom  he 
caught  injuring  or  robbing  a  poor  man. 

He  had  been  just  to  the  Jews,  nothing  more. 
The  oppression  which  the  law  clearly  dictated  had 
been  meted  out  to  them  in  Moscow  as  elsewhere. 
Only  Dolgoroukoff  would  not  allow  his  underlings 
to  blackmail  and  persecute  them  outside  the  law. 

Such  a  great  noble,  not  very  pious,  not  at  all 
servile,  who  was  actually  on  amiable  terms  with 
educated  and  able  Jews,  was  naturally  an  eyesore 
to  Pobiedonostseff  and  the  Jew-baiting  clique. 
So  long  as  he  held  supreme  office  in  Moscow — 
the  most  important  dignity  below  royalty  itself — 
no  crusade  upon  Israel  could  be  successfully  em- 
barked upon.  The  Holy  Synod  marked  the  old 
Governor-General  down  in  its  black  books. 

The  civil  Governor  of  Moscow,  Prince  Golit- 
zyn,  was  a  man  much  more  after  the  Inquisitor's 
heart — a  dull  and  malignant  man,  who  could  not 
possibly  have  been  given  office  ui  any  other 
country  under  the  sun,  and  in  Russia  only  obtained 
it  through  powerful  aristocratic  connections.  This 
Golitzyn  had  long  striven,  in  a  muddle-headed 
way,  to  distinguish  himself  by  effusive  brutality  of 
zeal  in  carrying  out  what  he  imagined  to  be  the 
Czar's  desires.  To  his  chagrin,  no  recognition 
had  come,  and  Dolgoroukoff  kept  so  vigilant  a 
watch  and  curb  upon  him  that  he  despaired  ever 
being  allowed  to  win  it. 

Prince    Golitzyn's  estate  at  Illinskoie  marches 


i88  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

with  that  of  the  Grand  Duke  Serge,  and  the  two 
men  are  intimate  associates.  It  is  supposed  that 
through  this  arose  the  suggestion  of  Serge's  taking 
Dolgoroukoff's  place.  However  suggested,  there 
was  soon  a  powerful  cabal  formed  to  bring  this 
result  about.  Various  sinister  figures  in  shady - 
politics  were  brought  into  the  intrigue — Ignatief 
and  Suvorin  among  them — and  it  was  not  difficult 
to  enlist  Pobiedonostseff  in  it.  Perhaps  he  in- 
vented the  Hebraic  pretext,  which  was  finally 
agreed  upon  as  a  basis  for  action.  At  all  events, 
M.  Alexeieff,  the  Mayor  of  Moscow,  wrote  a 
letter  to  Pobiedonostseff  declaring  that  there  were 
120,000  Jews  in  Moscow  (there  never  were  over 
30,000),  that  they  were  ruining  religion,  sapping 
loyalty,  and  destroying  trade,  and  that  they  had 
evidently  bribed  Dolgoroukoff  to  acquiesce  in  all 
their  scoundrelly  schemes. 

Pobiedonostseff"  showed  this  letter  to  the  Czar, 
and  so  played  upon  his  suspicion  of  dishonest 
officials,  his  aversion  to  the  Jews,  and  his  desire 
to  give  his  brother  some  show  of  usefulness  in  the 
State,  that  the  appointment  of  Serge  was  secured. 
This  desire  is  intelligible  enough,  since  the  problem 
of  what  to  do  with  the  ever-multiplying  swarm 
of  Grand  Dukes  lies  very  heavily  upon  the 
Czar's  mind.  There  are  at  the  present  writing 
not  less  than  twenty-four  of  these  princes  of  the 
blood.  Each  upon  his  birth  has  set  aside  a  certain 
sum,  partly  family  property,  partly  from  the  public 
funds,  which  will   have  grown  by  compound    in- 


THE   APPOINTMENT    OF   SERGE  189 

terest  to  the  capital  amount  of  2,000,000  roubles 
by  the  time  he  attains  his  majority.  Alexander 
III  has  a  provident  mind,  and  early  in  his  reign 
occupied  himself  with  devising  means  of  combating 
this  Grand-ducal  scourge.  By  a  family  statute  of 
July  1886,  he  ordained  that  hereafter  the  title  of 
Grand  Duke  should  not  descend  beyond  the 
grandson  of  a  reigning  Czar,  and  at  the  same  time 
he  greatly  increased  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
Grand  Dukes  marrying.  Morganatic  marriages 
are  sternly  forbidden,  and  the  Imperial  consent  to 
other  alliances  is  given  in  a  grudging  fashion. 
But  it  still  is  not  likely  that  Serge  would  have 
been  given  such  an  important  post,  had  not  the 
intrigue  against  his  predecessor  been  so  astutely 
mixed  up  with  the  Jewish  question. 

This  base  device  of  blackening  Prince  Dol- 
goroukoff's  character  is  still  employed,  despite  the 
fact  that  the  octogenarian  Governor-General  died 
in  Paris  very  shortly  after  his  enforced  resignation. 
To  this  day  every  Russian  official  has  at  his 
tonorue's  end  the  malicious  lie  that  Dolo;^oroukoff 
was  in  the  pay  of  the  Jews,  and  continually 
borrowed  large  sums  from  Lazarus  Poliakoff, 
which  he  was  never  asked  to  repay,  to  discharge 
the  interest  on  his  enormous  debts. 

The  falsehood  is  as  foolish  as  it  is  mean. 
Prince  Dolgoroukoff  lived  and  died  a  very  wealthy 
man.  One  estate  alone  of  the  several  he  pos- 
sessed yielded  an  annual  income  of  46,000  roubles. 
At  the  time  of  his  death  he  had  a  current  deposit 


I90  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

of  70,000  roubles  in  a  single  Moscow  bank.  These 
are  facts  within  my  own  knowledge. 

The  Grand  Duke  Serge — a  scrawny,  hollow- 
eyed,  narrow-browed  man  of  thirty-five,  every- 
where throughout  European  Courts  known  to  be 
the  least  intelligent  and  respectable  Romanoff 
since  the  time  of  Paul,  and  in  Russia  familiarly 
called  by  a  name  which  involves  offences  hardly 
to  be  hinted  at  in  type — was  in  March  gazetted  as 
the  new  Governor-General  of  Moscow, 

There  is  the  greatest  difficulty  in  speaking 
fittingly  of  this  person.  A  writer  in  the  Pompeian 
decadence  might  have  shrunk  from  saying  all 
there  is  to  be  said  about  Serge.  There  are  men 
in  the  mines  in  Siberia,  or  were  a  few  years  ago, 
who  were  exiled  by  the  old  Czar  for  having  been 
associated  with  this  son  of  his  in  conduct  of  the 
most  debased  and  abominable  sort.  There  is  no 
mystery  about  this  in  Russia.  Everybody  knows 
who  is  meant  when  "the  classic"  is  mentioned. 
No  one  ever  professes  doubt  as  to  the  man's 
character  and  habits.  English-speaking  peoples 
have  become  more  familiar  with  his  name  than 
with  that  of  any  other  Romanoff  prince,  for  the 
reason  that,  in  1884,  he  married  a  Hessian 
princess,  the  daughter  of  the  late  Princess  Alice. 
This  childless  lady  remains  a  wife  only  in  name. 
Nothing  could  be  more  tragically  pitiful  than  the 
way  in  which,  a  couple  of  years  ago,  she  was 
prevailed  upon  to  join  the  Greek  church,  on  the 
assurance    of    Serge's    chaplain    and    of    Count 


THE   APPOINTMENT   OF   SERGE  191 

Stenbock-Fermer,  his  Intendant,  that  her  nominal 
husband  would  alter  his  demeanour  toward  her 
once  she  was  in  the  Orthodox  fold.  It  is  known 
that  Abbot  John  of  Cronstadt,  the  most  important 
religious  figure  in  Russia^  had  the  courage  to  ask 
her  if  her  "conversion"  was  not  obtained  under 
these  abhorrent  circumstances,  and  was  fiercely 
warned  by  the  Czar  to  mind  his  own  business.  It 
is  needless  to  say  that  the  pledges  thus  given 
were  not  kept.  Serge  continues  the  unspeakable 
thing  he  was,  and  is  hissed  by  the  populace  on 
the  rare  occasions  when  he  appears  in  public  in 
Moscow. 

It  was  to  "  purify  "  the  city  for  the  entry  of  this 
obscene  simpleton  that  the  Cossacks  and  police 
made  that  famous  midnight  descent  upon  the  poor 
Jewish  quarter  in  Moscow  which  ushered  in  the 
new  persecution.  viiaML-this  first  raid,  recalling 
nothing  else  so  much  as__^an  attack  by  savages 
upon  a  frontier  settlementjui  American  colonial 
days,  was  followed  by  the  inhuman  sacking  and 
clearinof  of  an  entire  suburban  district ;  how  there 
came  the  edicts,  sentencing  practically  the  whole 
Jewish  population  of  Moscow  to  exile  and 
beggary ;  how  thick  and  fast  thereafter  succeeded 
the  ukases  which  have  turned  every  part  of 
Russia  into  a  hell  of  torment  to  an  entire  race — 
this  is  what  remains  to  be  told. 


CHAPTER  XI 

HOLY   MOSCOW'S   TRAGIC  PASSOVER 

To  even  begin  to  comprehend  Russia,  one 
must  have  seen  Moscow.  Viewed  solely  as  a 
spectacle,  I  should  think  there  is  nothing  else  in 
the  world  more  remarkable.  Considered  as  the 
key  to  the  strange,  baffling  enigma  of  the  retro- 
gressive Tartar  Empire  in  Europe,  it  furnishes 
the  most  fascinating  and  enthralling  of  studies. 
Frankly,  Moscow  ought  to  have  a  book  by  itself. 
To  compress  mention  of  it  into  a  few  paragraphs 
confronts  me  as  a  necessity,  which  is  also  a  grief 

(This  jwfiird,  Arabian  Night's  dream  of  a  me- 
tropolis conveys  to  eye  and  mind  alike  the  impres- 
sion of  being  lost  on  the  map — of  having  strayed 
a  thousand  miles  or  so  westward  out  of  its  reckon- 
ing. The  spectator  from  the  cupola  of  Ivan's 
tower  behold^s  a  vast  barbaric  encampment  sprawl- 
ing,_Qver  a  space  which  a  London  might  occupy — 
a  veritable  Asiatic  city  of  white  and  pale  red  walls, 
r  green  roofs.  Qxiental  crardens^  and  still  more 
'^n'^ntal  ^omes  and  minarets.  These  domes  rise 
on  every  side — to  the  number,  they  say,  of  nearly 
:  !000 — some  green  or  blue,  some  glowing  with 
fturnished  gold,    like    poppy-heads   and    ox-eyed 


HOLY   MOSCOWS   TRAGIC   PASSOVER        193 

daisies  above  a  field  of  mixed  clover.  At  in- 
tervals tall  slender  towers  lift  themselves  up  like 
palms,  to  flower  at  the  to£_jn_^  lacework  of  en- 
girdling balcony.  Around  this  a  man  is  for  ever 
walking,  day  and  night,  to-watch  for  fires — just  as 
they  were  doing  in  Bokhara  a  thousand  years  ago. 

In  the  centre  of  all,  high -banked  upon  the  river- 
side, looms  the  historic  Kremlin,  with  its  Tartar 
name,  its  white-and-gold  mosques  dating  from 
remote_£ire-Tar-tar  times,  and  its~tiuge  red-palace, 
built' by"  that  modern  Tartar,  Nicholas,  less  than 
fifty  years  back^j^t  looking  more  savage  than  all 
the  rest. 

j  Gazing  upon  this  spectacle,  one  forgets  that  he^ 
is  only  a  thirty  hours'  ride  from  German  soil.     He 
seems  immeasurably  nearer  to  Samarcand  than  to 
any  civilised  portion  ot  the"globe. 

And  this  is  what  Moscow  feels.     Its  interests  \ 
and  its  affections  turn  ever  eastward.  ^^ 

St.  Petersburg  by  comparison  is  a  pitiful  thingf 
— a  dreary,  commonplace,  pretentious  imitation  on 
alien  standards,  with  wide,  empty  streets,  hugej 
desolate-looking  palaces,  and  a  sparse  population 
which  seems  no  more  at  home  than  does  jn 
Ogallalla  chief  in  a  silk  hat.  St.  Petersbu -g 
represents  what  the  Czars  have  desired  thit 
Russia  should  pretend  to  be.  Moscow  represents 
what  Russia  really  is.  / 

Moscow  has  little  that  is  characteristic  to  show 
of  the  times  since  Ivan  the  Terrible.  It  is  true 
that  the  Romanoffs  came  from  the  neighbourhood 


194  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

— their  mediaeval  boyar  residence  in  the  Varvarka 
is  still  a  sight  for  tourists — but  two  of  their  three 
generations,  what  with  establishing  a  dynasty, 
waging  foreign  wars,  and  fighting  the  Nikon 
schism,  had  no  time  for  building,  and  Peter  the 
Great  built  a  capital  for  himself  on  the  Neva 
instead.  Moscow,  too,  bore  scarcely  any  part  in 
the  European  masquerade  begun  by  Peter,  which 
was  sunk  into  an  orgy  by  his  widow,  niece, 
daughter,  and  idiot  grandson,  and  lifted  into  a 
tragedy  by  the  Ascanien  v/ife  of  this  foolL  Moscow 
through  all  this  century  of  neglect  and  desertion 
held  its  peace'  witli  true  Eastern  patience.  When 
the  time  of  sacrifice  came,  it  burned  itself  on  the 
altar  without  reluctance,  without  hesitation.  All 
that  is  truly  fine  in  barbarism  shines  in  the  history 
of  Moscow. 

As  one  would  expect,  it  is  in  Moscow  that  the 
lamp  of  Pan-Slavism  has  been  kept  alight.  It  has 
Ibeen  the  home  of  successive  generations  of  national 

)okesmen  and  leaders  who  ceased  not  to  protest 
^inst  the  Court  effort  to  Germanise  Russia.  It 
here  that  Aksakoff  uttered  the  famous  watch- 
words of  the  reactionary  party,  "  It  is  time  to  go 
homej"  Here,  too,  only  a  few  years  ago,  the 
Mayor,  M.  Alexeieff,  made  the  celebrated  speech 
about  planting  the  double-cross  of  the  Greek 
orthodoxy  upon  the  Mosque  of  St.  Sophia  in 
Constantinople. 

The  people  of  Moscow  live  almost  without 
newspapers,  or,  better,  without  European   news. 


I 


HOLY    MOSCOW'S   TRAGIC    PASSOVER         195 

Scarcely  a  breath  of  the  outside  Western  world 
touches  them.  The  untravelled  among  them  have 
only  the  vaguest  and  most  childlike  notions  about 
Berlin,  Vienna,  or  London ;  and  these  notions, 
when  they  are  not  indifferent,  are  profoundly 
contemptuous.  Their,  devotion  to  their  barbaric 
Church,  its  ritual,  its  fast-days,  and  its  miracle- 
working  ikons,  puts  to  shame  the  perfunctory 
observances  of  St.  Petersburg.  They  think  of 
the  Protestants  and  Catholics  of  Europe  as  mere 
unimportant  sects!  i  heyTeel  themselves  to  be, 
as  they  are,  t1ie~uitizens  of  Russia's  true  autocratic 
and  ecclesiastical  capital.  They  never  doubt  that 
in  good  time  the  Czar  and  the  Holy  Synod,  sick 
of  the  vanities  and  poor  Western  imitations  of  St. 
Petersburg,  will  return  to  their  real  home,  Holy 
Moscow.  \         ■    — -"'" 

Moscowhas  much  the  same  feeling  toward  the  ^ 
Jews  that  the  Emirs    of  Bokhara  might  have —  \ 
that  is,   one  of  contemptuous  tolerance  in  good-  / 
humoured  times,  of  grim  ferocity  when  the   ugly/ 
mood  is  on.     The  mere  suggestion  that  the  Cz^ 
and  the  Holy  Synod  actively  disliked  them  would 
be    enough   to   provoke    a    persecution.     These 
Moscovians,  however,  would  have  no  thought  of 
a  fear  of  consequences  such  as  might  deter   the 
Bokharan  despot.     They  are  proudly  incredulous 
•of  Europe's  power  to  make  them  afraid.     Once, 
indeed,  the  French,  under  the  mighty  Napoleon, 
did  reach  the  Holy  City  and  stable  their  horses  in 
St.  Basil's ;  but  the  result  of  this  invasion  is  such  an 


196  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

(  awful  landmark  in  history  that  the  Moscow  imagina- 
tipn_never  conceives  the  possibility  of  its  repetition. 

Hence,  when  it  becomes  known  in  Moscow 
that  Western  Europe,  and  particularly  that  med- 
dlesome part  of  it  presided  over  by  the  Lord 
Mayor  of  London,  is  protesting  against  something 
which  Moscow  is  doing,  the  news  impels  Moscow 
promptly  to  do  that  something  with  increased 
fervour  and  energy. 

As  Moscow  is  the  heart,  the  core,  of  the  real 
Russia,  so  her  treatment  of  the  Jews  during  this 
terrible  year  1891  most  truly  typifies  the  persecu- 
tion throughout  the  empire.  As  was  said  at  the 
outset,  it  would  require  many  big  volumes  ade- 
quately to  present  the  history  of  this  persecution. 
It  is  not  within  my  po\ver  or  the  proper  scope  of 
this  work  to  tell  the  tithe  of  what  happened  in 
Moscow  alone.  But  I  have  chosen  to  dwell  at 
greatest  lengths  upon  the  events  in  Moscow, 
because  it  is  here  that  one  gets  the  clearest  view 
of  the  foul  hypocrisy,  the  meanness,  the  stupidity, 
and  the  savagery  which  have  all  over  Russia 
marked  this  latest  crusade. 

In  other  places,  too,  it  has  been  possible  for  an 
apologist  to  plead  in  extenuation  that  the  brutality 
and  violence  were  the  work  of  the  small  local 
authorities,  and  that  it  was  unjust  to  hold  the 
Imperial  Government  responsible  for  the  acts  of 
obscure  and  remote  agents.  But  in  Moscow,  as 
I  have  shown,  the  conspiracy  began  upon  the 
very  steps  of  the  throne.     A  brother  of  the  Czar 


HOLY   MOSCOW'S   TRAGIC   PASSOVER         197 

was  made  the  stalking-horse  of  the  plot  to  defame 
and  dispossess  an  honest  and  tolerant  Governor- 
General  and  to  establish  the  Jew  baiters  in  power. 
The  Holy  Synod  openly  proclaimed  the  necessity 
of  "  purifying  "  Moscow  from  the  presence  of  Jews 
before  the  Imperial  Grand  Duke  Serge  entered 
upon  his  office.  _„^ 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  persecution  else- 
where, there  is  no  difficulty  in  fixing  direct 
responsibility  for  the  unspeakable  events  of 
Moscow  upon  Pobiedonostseff,  Dournovo,  and 
Alexander  III. 

The  general  theory  among  the  Moscow  Jews 
is  that  in  March  1891  they  numbered  about 
30,000.  It  is  very  difficult  to  get  at  the  facts. 
As  has  been  said,  the  Mayor  of  Moscow,  in  a 
letter  to  Pobiedonostseff,  unblushingly  placed  their 
number  at  1 20,000.  The  man  upon  whose  infor- 
mation and  candour  I  relied  most  of  all  in  Moscow 
gave  me  the  following  estimate,  which  is  some- 
what lower  than  that  popularly  made,  but  may  be 
accepted  as  approximately  correct : 

City  of  Moscorv. 

Legal  Divisions.  Families.       Souls. 

A.  Artisans  and  poorer  classes  ;  two-thirds  ) 

of  whom  were  expelled  from  March-  / 

June   1891 3)5co     175500/ 

B.  "  Circular "    people  ;     expulsions    now  / 

going  on 800       4,9^ 

*C.  Merchants  of  the  First  Guild         .         .120  700 

*D.  Professional  and  higher  education        .      200  800 

Total         .         .         .  4,620      23,000 

'  Not  touched  .is  yet. 


198  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

Province  of  Moscow. 

Legal  Divisions.  Families.      Souls. 

E.  Suburb  of  Marina  Rostscha;  extremely 

poor  people  ......      400       2,400 

F.  Rest  of  province  ;  all  classes         .         .      500        2,600 


Grand  total         .         .         .  5,520      28,000 

The  distinction  between  the  city  proper  and  the 
province  is  important,  because  within  the  former 
the  Cossack  Chief  of  Police,  Yourkoffsky,  was 
supreme,  whereas  in  the  suburbs  and  elsewhere 
throughout  the  district  Prince  Golitzyn  is  re- 
sponsible for  what  has  been  done.  It  is  with 
reference  to  the  latter  in  particular  that  documents 
exist  which  will  come  as  a  surprise,  I  venture  to 
think,  to  the  civilised  world. 

During  the  month  of  March,  General  Kostanda^ 
a  Greek  born  in  Odessa,  and  then  commandant 
of  the  troops  in  the  Province  of  Moscow,  was 
summoned  to  St.  Petersburgf  to  receive  the  edict 
appointing  the  Grand  Duke  Serge  Governor- 
General,  and  get  his  own  authorisation  to  act  as 
locum  tenens  until  the  Prince  should  take  up  his 
new  post.  General  Kostanda,  a  decent  wooden 
man,  returned  to  Moscow  wearing  a  long  face.  To 
a  police  officer  who  met  him  at  the  station  he 
gloomily  confided  the  fact  that  he  had  orders  to 
settle  the  Jewish  question  in  Moscow  before 
Easter. 

Within  sight  of  the  walls  of  the  Kremlin — 
hemmed  in  away  from  the  river,  between  that 
sprawling  palace  enclosure  and  the  famous  Found- 


I 


HOLY   MOSCOW'S   TRAGIC    PASSOVER         199 

ling  Hospital — lies  one  of  the  most  deplorable 
slums  which  any  of  the  world's  great  cities  con- 
tains. It  is  the  Zariadie  quarter,  and  was  the 
home  of  most  of  Moscow's  poorer  Jews.  Here  in 
hugit  podvories,  or  houses  serving  at  once  as  tene- 
ments for  the  swarm  of  resident  occupiers,  and  as 
furnished  apartment  dwellings  for  Jews  coming 
into  Moscow  on  temporary  business,  lived  many 
thousands  of  the  Hebrew  colony — at  least  half  of 
the  city's  Israelitish  population.  These  podvorics 
all  have  distinctive  names.  The  largest  of  them, 
the  Glebovskaya  Podvoryeh,  has  a  melancholy 
fame  in  the  local  history  of  the  Moscow  Jews. 
To  this  vast  rickety  old  hive  every  strange 
Hebrew  entering  Holy  Moscow  used  to  be  escorted 
from  the  city  gate  by  mounted  Cossacks  ;  here  he 
was  compelled  to  live  during  the  three  days  of  his 
allotted  stay.  It  seems  incredible,  but  there  can 
be  no  real  doubt  that  two  years  ago  between  2500 
and  3000  Jews  of  all  ages  were  domiciled  in  this 
one  building.  It  is  the  property  of  the  Moscow 
Eye  Hospital,  and  the  lessee,  himself  a  Jew,  en- 
joyed from  it  an  annual  income  of  25,000  roubles. 
Now  he  has  thrown  up  his  lease  in  despair,  and 
the  great  edifice  is  entirely  tenantless. 

A  few  days  after  General  Kostanda's  return, 
this  whole  Zariadie  quarter  was  surrounded  at 
midnight  by  the  police,  the  mounted  Cossacks  who 
serve  under  police  control,  and  even  the  city  fire- 
men. Strong  forces  were  posted  on  the  Moskva- 
retsk  and  Ustinsky  bridges,  to  prevent  escape  to 


200  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

the  right  bank  of  the  river,  and  all  the  streets  and 
passages  leading  to  the  Ilyinka  were  closely 
guarded.  Then,  under  Yourkoffsky's  personal 
supervision,  the  whole  quarter  was  ransacked,  apart- 
ments forced  open,  doors  smashed,  every  bedroom 
without  exception  searched,  and  every  living  soul, 
men,  women  and  children,  routed  out  for  examina- 
tion as  to  their  passports.  The  indignities  which 
the  women,  young  and  old  alike,  underwent  at 
the  hands  of  the  Cossacks  may  not  be  described. 

As  a  result,  over  700  men,  women  and  children 
were  dragged  at  dead  of  night  through  the  streets 
to  the  outchastoks  or  policestations.  They  were 
not  eve'h'givcft  tiTTTg^dressthem^lves,  and  they 
were  kept  in  this  noisome  and  overcrowded  con- 
finement for  thirty-six  hours,  almost  all  without 
food,  and  some  without  water  as  well.  Of  these 
unhappy  people,  thus  driven  from  their  beds,  and 
haled  off  to  prison  in  the  wintry  darkness,  some 
were  afterward  marched  away  by  (!tape,  that  is, 
chained  together  with  criminals  and  forced  along 
the  roads  by  Cossacks.  A  few  were  bribed  out  of 
confinement ;  the  rest  were  summarily  shipped  to 
the  Pale.  To-day  they  are  scattered — who  knows 
where  ?  — over  the  whole  face  of  the  earth.  They 
were  chiefly  artisans  and  petty  traders.  There 
was  no  charge  of  criminality  or  of  leading  an  evil 
life  against  any  of  them.  They  were  arrested  and 
banished  whether  their  passports  were  in  order  or 
not,  and  with  them,  alike  to  the  outchastoks  and 
into  exile  went  their  children  and  womenkind. 


THE    COSSACK,     GEN.     YOURKOFFSKY 
(Late  Chiej  of  Police  of  Moscow) 


I 


HOLY   MOSCOW'S   TRAGIC   PASSOVER         201 

With  the  exception  of  a  partial  account  in  the 
Moskovsk  Viedomosti  of  April  9,  1891,  nothing 
was  ever  printed  about  this  astonishing  event 
save  a  note  in  the  St.  Petersburg  papers  of 
April  12,  which  was  transmitted  to  the  conti- 
nental press  as  well,  stating  briefly  that  "150 
Jews  had  been  arrested  in  Moscow."  This  is 
worth  noting,  because  it  is  the  only  reference  to 
the  Moscow  barbarities  which  has  ever  been  per- 
mitted to  appear  in  the  Russian  press  from  that 
day  to  this.  It  also  has  a  value  as  a  characteristic 
example  of  Russian  veracity.  The  number  of 
frightened  wretches  thus  descended  upon  and 
dragged  from  their  homes  was  in  reality  about 
five  times  as  great  as  was  stated. 

Startling  as  the  number  is,  it  would  have  been 
much  larger  but  for  a  fortuitous  accident.  One  of 
the  police  officers,  who  knew  in  advance  of  this 
barbarous  project,  happened  to  be  a  baptised  Jew. 
He  risked  Siberia  to  save  the  friendless  people  of 
his  blood.  His  first  recourse  was  to  send  a 
warning  note  to  the  Rabbi,  but  the  latter  was 
attending  a  wedding  somewhere  and  could  not  be 
found.  Then  the  police  agent  sent  a  man  in  a 
cab  to  notify  Jewish  shopkeepers  whom  he  could 
trust  not  to  betray  him.  In  this  way  a  large 
number  were  warned,  and  did  not  go  home  that 
night. 

It  may  be  imagined  that  the  tidings  of  this 
outrage  filled  the  Jewish  community  of  Moscow 
with  consternation.      Perhaps  that  is  too  strong  a 


202  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

word.  Israel  is  an  inveterate  optimist — and  more 
so  in  Moscow  than  elsewhere  in  Russia.  I  could 
not  learn  during  my  visit  in  July  and  August  that 
this  first  stroke  at  the  poor  defenceless  wretches 
in  the  Glebovskaya  Podvoryeh  brought  any  de- 
finite consciousness  of  approaching  mischief  to  the 
better  protected  classes  of  Moscow  Jews.  As  the 
progressive  blows  Avere  struck,  they  found  each 
grade  in  the  Hebraic  social  formation  quite  taken 
by  surprise- — quite  unprepared  by  the  misfortunes 
of  a  poorer  class  for  its  own  calamity.  To  this 
day  there  are  numbers  of  Jewish  merchants  of  the 
First  Guild  in  the  large  Russian  cities  who  will 
not  believe  it  possible  that  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment— though  it  has  broken  its  faith  with  every- 
body else — can  ever  turn  against  them. 

Moreover,  the  Jewish  community  in  Moscow 
was  almost  completely  lacking  in  organisation. 
We  habitually  think  of  the  Israelitish  element  in 
every  town  as  being  so  closely  welded  together 
in  bonds  of  common  interest,  sympathy,  and 
ambition  that  it  overbears  and  breaks  down  the 
scattering  competition  of  outsiders.  This  notion 
is  more  or  less  at  fault  in  every  civilised  country. 
It  is  not  true  even  of  Moscow. 

On  the  Bourse  there,  for  example,  I  found 
Jewish  merchants  of  the  First  Guild  who  had  lived 
in  Moscow  for  a  dozen  years  or  more,  yet  who 
barely  knew  each  other  by  sight,  and  in  two 
cases,  I  remember,  not  even  by  name.  The 
explanation   is  that,  under  Dolgoroukoff's  lenient 


HOLY   MOSCOW'S   TRAGIC   PASSOVER        203 

rule,  their  race  and  religious  barriers  had  fallen 
away,  and  they  had  formed  associations  with 
Christians  instead.  They  came,  too,  from  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  empire  or  of  Europe ;  their 
children  in  many  cases  were  baptised,  and  they 
avoided  intimate  Jewish  connections  on  their 
account.  The  Jewish  community  in  Moscow 
spent  125,000  roubles  annually  in  charity,  but 
the  sum  was  contributed  by  a  very  small  number 
of  individuals.  During  the  terrible  spring  and 
summer  of  1891  only  27,000  roubles  could  be 
raised  among  them  for  relief  of  the  sufferers, 
railway  tickets,  &c.  This  must  not  be  put  down 
to  niggardliness.  On  May  10  the  Novoe  Vreniya 
declared  there  were  65,000,000  roubles'  worth  of 
bills  on  Moscow  Jews  in  banks  or  in  private  hands 
which  no  one  would  accept  or  pay. 

All  the  same,  this  midnight  descent  on  the 
Jewish  quarter  sent  a  thrill  through  the  whole 
body.  It  could  not  be  believed  that  the  thing 
was  done  with  authority,  and  protests  and  appeals 
were  filed,  as  if  there  was  still  a  rei^n  of  reason 
and  justice. 

The  merchants  of  the  First  Guild  were  not  lonof 
suffered,  however,  to  remain  under  this  delusion. 
I  have  already  explained  how,  under  the  law  that 
each  merchant  might  "take  with  himself"  into 
the  interior  as  many  Jewish  clerks  as  he  needed, 
it  became  a  not  uncommon  thin  or  for  artisans  and 
small  traders  to  settle  in  towns,  nominally  as 
clerks  of  some  big  Jewish  merchants,   but  really 


204  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

doing;  business  for  themselves.  I  do  not  think 
there  was  much  of  this  in  Moscow.  Indeed,  the 
old  Governor-General,  Prince  Dolgoroukoff,  in- 
terpreted the  word  "need"  so  literally  that  he 
never  granted  permission  to  a  Jewish  merchant 
to  employ  a  new  Jewish  clerk  without  referring 
the  question  whether  it  was  "  needful "  to  M. 
Naidianoff,  President  of  the  Bourse  Committee, 
who  ever  since  1885  had  invariably  answered  no. 
This,  by  the  way,  furnishes  an  interesting  com- 
ment upon  the  stories  of  Dolgoroukoff  s  subser- 
viency to  the  Jews, 

But  now  of  a  sudden  the  Moscow  officials 
discovered  a  new  construction  of  the  phrase  "  may 
take  with  himself."  They  began  an  investigating 
tour  of  the  offices  and  counting-rooms  of  the 
Jewish  merchants  of  the  First  Guild.  Every  clerk 
who  could  not  prove  that  his  employer  had  per- 
sonally conducted  him  from  his  home  in  the  Pale 
to  his  present  place  of  labour,  was  given  abrupt 
orders  to  get  out.  Many  of  the  men  thus  put 
under  sentence  of  banishment  or  ruin — for  what 
could  clerks  do  in  the  Pale  ? — had  lived  in  Moscow 
more  than  half  their  lives,  and  were  well-known 
and  popular  citizens.  One  old  clerk  in  the 
Moscow  -  Riazan  Bank,  thus  expelled  with  his 
family,  had  held  his  place  and  his  residence  in 
Moscow  for  thirty-two  years ! 

For  some  weeks  the  police  kept  up  a  system  of 
midnight  descents  upon  the  various  podvories, 
not  only  in  the  Zariadie  quarter,  but  elsewhere,  as 


HOLY   MOSCOW'S   TRACxIC   PASSOVER       205 

in  Solianka,  Staraia,  and  Ploschtchad  streets. 
This  running  fire  of  irregular  persecution,  however, 
touching  only  the  poorest  classes  as  it  did,  was 
merely  an  overture  to  the  real  performance. 

The  first  two  days  of  the  Passover,  in  April  of 
1 89 1,  will  never  be  forgotten  while  the  Jews  re- 
member Russia. 

It  is  said  to  be  to  the  felicitous  invention  of 
M.  jAlexeieff,  Mayor  of  Moscow,  that  these  days 
owetfieirsiliister  renown.  I  saw  that  burly,  swart, 
round-headed,  heavy-jowled  barbarian  driving  in 
his  troika  with  Admiral  Gervais,  and  he  did  not 
look  as  if  he  had  ever  invented  anything.  He  is 
a  man  of  forty-five,  and  inherited  great  wealth 
and  a  large  mercantile  business  from  his  father. 
The  Jews  lay  stress  upon  the  fact  that  his  mother 
was  a  Greek — of  a  race  which  they  hold  in  pecu- 
liar terror  and  aversion.  He  is  an  ambitious  de- 
magogue,~who  ostentatiously  divides  the  Mayor's 
salary  of  7000  roubles  among  the  clerks  in  the 
office,  and  himself  spends  from  100,000  to  120,000 
roubles  in  entertainments  and  municipal  ceremo- 
nies annually.  The  year  1891  is  said  to  have 
cost  him  160,000,  owing  to  his  bringing  all  the 
officers  of  the  French  fleet  from  Cronstadt  to 
Moscow,  entertaining  them  at  the  principal  hotel 
four  days,  and  sending  them  back  as  they  came, 
by  special  train,  all  at  his  own  expense. 

The  fact  that  the  old  Governor-General  had 
steadfastly  resented  this  spread-eagleism,  and  done 
all  he  could  to  prevent  the  Mayor  from  posing  as 


2o6  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

the  master  of  Moscow,  furnished  Alexeieff's  chief 
reason  for  joining  the  conspiracy  against  Prince 
Dolgoroukoff.  The  same  motive  changed  him 
from  an  effusive,  not  to  say  loud-mouthed,  de- 
fender of  the  Jews  in  Alexander  II.'s  reign  into 
the  most  vehement  and  relentless  Jew  baiter  to 
be  found  anywhere  in  the  dominions  of  Alex- 
ander III. 

He  burned  to  distinguish  himself  at  the  very 

outset  of  the   Grand   Duke   Serge's  regime  by  a 

more  ingenious  device  of  torture   for  Jews  than 

/had  yet  occurred  to  any  other  anti-Semite.    JEJie 

Lfivantine  half  of  him  prompted  this  peculiarly 

1  Oriental  piece  of  brutal  cunning. 

An  imperial  edict  had  finally  been  secured  a 
few  days  before,  which  swept  away  all  the  rights 
of  residence  in  Moscow  given  by  the  law  of  1865 
to  Jewish  artisans  and  handicraftsmen.  This 
decree  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Moscow  autho- 
rities some  time  before  the  Passover.  It  was 
Alexeieff  s  idea  to  withhold  it  for  a  little  and  have 
some  sport. 

On  the  first  day  of  the  Passover,  after  the  Jews 
had  assembled  in  their  synagogue,  whispered 
word  was  passed  round  of  a  ukase  just  promul- 
gated which  would  hereafter  make  it  difficult  for 
more  Hebrews  to  come  and  settle  in  Moscow. 
Later  comers  brouo-ht  the  text  of  this  decree.  It 
was  but  a  line  or  so,  ordaining,  in  substance,  that 
"all  Jewish  artisans,  small  traders,  publicans 
&c.,    are    forbidden    to   enter    Moscow  and    the 


HOLY   MOSCOW'S   TRAGIC    PASSOVER       207 

Province  of  Moscow."     It  was  dated  March  28 
(O.S.). 

It  is  true  that  this  came  as  a  surprise,  but  the 
Jews  gathered  together  in  celebration  of  the 
paschal  sacrifice  did  not,  perhaps,  regard  it  as  an 
unmixed  evil.  Under  the  circumstances,  with  a 
hostile  spirit  plainly  gaining  force  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, and  with  the  memory  of  the  previous  week's 
midnight  arrests  in  their  minds,  it  was  natural 
that  they  should  feel  that  there  were  already 
quite  enough  Jews  in  Moscow. 

The  next  day,  the  second  of  the  Passover, 
came  what  seemed  at  first  to  be  another  edict. 
It  also  bore  date  of  March  28  (O.S.),  and  it  said 
simply:  "The  Minister  of  the  Interior,  in  con- 
nection with  His  Imperial  Highness  the  Governor- 
General  of  Moscow,  will  straightway  consider  and 
adopt  measures  to  secure  the  removal  of  the 
'above-named  Jews' from  Moscow  and  the  Pro- 
vince of  Moscow." 

"Above-named  Jews"?  The  puzzled  com- 
munity gazed  at  the  words  in  bewilderment. 
Then  a  terrible  light  shone  upon  the  paper.  The 
two  decrees  were  really  parts  of  one  edict.  Yes  ! 
They  bore  the  same  date  !  The  phrase  "  above- 
named,"  in  the  second,  could  only  refer  to  the 
category  enumerated  in  the  first.  They  had  been 
separated,  and  doled  out  on  different  days,  in  a 
refinement  of  savage  cruelty.  The  laws  of  1865 
were  annulled! 

A   shriek   of  dismay  went  up,   drowning   the 


2o8  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

chant  of  the  festival.  Women  swarmed  screaminof 
through  the  narrow  streets  to  the  synagogue.  In 
thousands  of  homes  parents  looked  at  each  other 
over  the  heads  of  their  children  with  blanched 
faces — and,  even  as  they  gazed,  heard  the  hoofs  of 
the  Cossacks'  horses  on  the  stones  outside. 


I 


CHAPTER   XII 

MARINA    ROSTSCHA    AND   THE   "CIRCULARS" 

A  DOZEN  years  ago  a  birch  forest  came  up  almost 
to  the  very  gates  of  Moscow  along  the  city's 
northern  line.  It  was  called  Marina  Rostscha, 
and  this  name  was  given  to  the  residential  suburb 
which,  shortly  after  the  war,  began  to  extend 
itself  beyond  the  municipal  border.  The  first  to 
discover  this  northern  outlet  were  well-to-do 
citizens — everywhere  in  Russia  as  in  the  United 
States  on  the  look-out  for  rural  spots  in  which  to 
build  summer  cottages — and  their  comfortable 
wooden  villas  now  line  the  main  road  for  some 
miles  beyond  the  city  limit.  The  forest  has 
dwindled  here  into  scattered  groves  of  small 
trees,  through  the  verdure  of  which  may  be 
discerned  still  other  and  more  secluded  rustic 
summer  houses. 

In  a  remote  part  of  this  straggling  wood  some 
Russian  speculators  of  the  humbler  sort  eight 
years  ago  built  a  village  of  little  houses — they 
might  even  better  be  called  hovels — and  rented 
them  to  Jews  who  were  too  poor  to  pay  police 
blackmail  for  the  privilege  of  living  in  Moscow 
itself.     At  the  Passover  time  of  1891   it  is  said 

o 


2IO  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

that  400  Hebrew  families  were  huddled  in  this 
squalid  hamlet.  They  were  perhaps  the  most 
hopelessly  poverty-stricken  creatures  in  the  whole 
province,  but  they  at  least  had  homes  of  their 
own — that  peculiarly  racial  ambition  which  every- 
where, under  the  most  adverse  and  trying  con- 
ditions, the  Jewish  people  toil  to  gratify. 

Like  the  very  poor  in  every  community,  these 
households  hidden  away  in  the  forest  were  rich  in 
children.  The  families  here  were  to  be  com- 
puted, I  was  informed,  at  the  high  average  of  six 
members  each. 

I  made  a  pilgrimage  to  this  now  historic  place 
on  a  rainy  day  in  August  of  1891.  Three  Greek 
cemeteries  lie  upon  this  northern  border  of  the 
town — the  largest  of  them  just  within  the  city 
bounds,  the  others  outside.  After  you  have 
passed  these  burial-grounds  Marina  Rostscha 
begins,  but  there  is  a  long  drive  through  a  com- 
paratively open  district  before  our  part  of  the 
woods  is  reached. 

No  more  depressing  spectacle  can  well  be  con- 
ceived. The  white-stemmed  birches,  which  lend 
an  indescribably  sad  aspect  to  all  North  Russian 
scenery,  drooped  their  delicate  boughs  like  weep- 
ing willows  and  shuddered  in  the  rain.  The  pale 
ereen  masses  of  distant  foliao^e  lost  their  outlines 
in  the  gloomy  grey  mist  exhaled  by  the  drenched 
earth.  Little  disused  lanes,  all  deep  mud  and 
puddles,  here  and  there  branched  from  the  chief 
thoroughfare    to    pierce    the    bosky    thicket,   and 


MARINA   ROSTSCHA  AND   "CIRCULARS"     211 

where  these  cut  a  way  through  the  trees  the  eye 
caueht  vistas  of  rude  roadside  shanties,  which  had 
once  been  homes,  and  now  were  but  a  forlorn  and 
ugly  part  of  the  picture  of  desolation. 

Somewhere  in  this  rain-soaked  and  deserted 
wilderness  I  was  told  there  were  a  dozen  or  more 
families  of  Jews  still  living  in  their  cabins.  I 
could  not  find  them.  V/e  drove  in  and  out  for 
what  seemed  to  be  several  miles  without  seeinof-  a 
soul.  In  one  of  the  lanes,  finally,  we  came  upon 
two  Jews,  an  old,  long-bearded  man  in  cap  and 
caftan,  and  a  young  fellow  who  looked  to  be  in  an 
advanced  stage  of  consumption,  dragging  through 
the  deep  mire  a  truck  laden  with  household 
goods.  Some  time  before  a  big  and  rather 
foolish-looking  vagrant  dog  had  attached  himself 
to  us,  and  was  following  along  after  my  droschky. 
The  two  Jews  left  their  cart  as  we  approached 
and  withdrew  to  a  safe  distance  until  we  had 
passed.  My  isvostchik  laughed  till  the  tears  ran 
down  his  face  as  he  explained  to  me,  by  panto- 
mime and  the  few  German  words  he  knew,  how 
the  Jews  were  always  in  mortal  terror  of  dogs. 
Volumes  could  not  have  better  told  the  tale  of  a 
hunted  race. 

The  story  of  the  clearing  of  Marina  Rostscha  is 
perhaps  the  most  cruel  and  repellent  episode  in 
the  whole  record  of  that  spring's  barbarities. 

As  I  have  said,  the  Jews  living  here  were  of 
the  lowliest  class — artisans,  petty  traders,  and 
street  hawkers,  porters,  and  day  labourers.     They 


V 


212  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

had  congregated  here,  it  is  true,  to  avoid  the 
pohce,  but  this  involves  no  suggestion  of  wrong- 
doing on  their  part.  Their  object  in  getting  as 
far  away  as  possible  from  the  police,  was  not 
that  they  were  criminals,  but  that  they  could  not 
raise  the  money  to  pay  them  for  permission  to 
live  unmolested  in  the  town.  There  is  no  record 
of  an  arrest  ever  having  been  made  among  the 
Jews  of  Marina  Rostscha  for  a  criminal  offence. 
The  heads  of  families — all  the  men,  in  fact — 
went  daily  to  Moscow  to  work,  returning  in  the 
evening  to  their  homes.  Some  of  their  children 
came  in  to  the  technical  or  handcraft  school 
maintained  by  the  Jewish  community  of  Moscow. 
Most  of  them,  however,  studied  their  primers  and 
elementary  books  at  home. 

Of  a  sudden,  without  warning,  on  an  inclement 
wintry  night,  a  troop  of  police  and  Cossacks 
surrounded  this  out-of-the-way  country  suburb, 
and,  forming  an  engirdling  cordon,  proceeded  to 
carry  out  Prince  Golitzyn's  written  order  to  expel 
the  entire  community ! 

This  order  was  executed  with  what  even 
Russians  regarded  as  incredible  brutality.  The 
lights  had  been  extinguished  in  almost  every 
house,  and  the  unsuspecting  people  were  asleep. 
They  were  awakened  by  the  crash  of  their  doors 
being  broken  open,  and  the  boisterous  entrance 
of  Cossacks,  with  torches  and  drawn  swords. 
The  terrified  inmates  were  routed  out,  and 
driven    with    blows    and    curses    into    the    night, 


.MARINA   ROSTSCHA   AND    "CIRCULARS"     213 


without  being  given  time  even  to  dress.  They 
snatched  such  garments  as  they  could  and  ran. 
The  tales  that  are  told  are  too  harrowing  to  \ 
dwell  upon.  At  least  300  families  were  thus  ^ 
draesfed  from  their  beds,  and  chased  out  into  the 
wintry  darkness  on  this  first  night's  raid.  Bare- 
footed, half-naked,  frightened  out  of  their  senses, 
these  outcasts  wandered  helplessly  through  the 
black  woods,  moaning  in  their  misery,  or  raising 
shouts  in  the  effort  to  keep  together. 

Some  of  them,  at  last,  were  able  to  build  fires  1 
in  the  forest,  and  gather  around  these  the  old  and 
infirm,  and  the  women  with  nursing  babes  at 
their  breasts,  or  little  children,  who  had  made 
their  way  thus  far  with  bare  feet  over  the  snow 
and  frozen  ground.  The  soldiers  pursued  them 
hither  and  stamped  out  these  fires ! 

Others  did  not  stop  in  their  flight  until  they 
had  reached  the  cemeteries," lying  just  outside 
the  town.  Here  they  found  refuge,  and,  crouch- 
ing for  shelter  among  the  tombstones,  waited  for 
morning.  Here,  when  the  mocking  daylight 
came,  it  gilded  pictures  of  anguish  and  horror 
which  one  may  not  attempt  to  describe.  Take 
only  this  one  little  sketch  from  the  panorama  of 
suffering  :  it  is  the  figure  of  a  woman — by  name 
Epstein — who,  fleeing  from  her  invaded  home 
through  the  night,  became  separated  from  her 
husband  and  son,  and  made  lien  way  alone  to 
the  Miuski  Orthodox  cemetery.  She  is  found  by 
the  morning  light,  lying  insensible  on  the  frosted 


214  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

I  grass  among  the  graves.     Beside  her  is  a  dead 
'-ehTiillo  which  she  had  given  birth  during  the 
dreadful  night. 

No  allusion  to  this  amazing  event  has  ever 
appeared  in  any  Russian  paper.  There  was  no 
editor  who  dared  so  much  as  to  mention  it. 
Although  many  deaths  resulted,  directly  and  in- 
directly, from  the  terrible  shock  and  exposure  of 
that  night,  there  were  no  inquests,  no  investiga- 
tions, no  official  reports. 

News  of  the  outrage  did  spread  through  Russia, 
by  letters  and  by  word  of  mouth,  and  some  of  the 
details  found  their  way  into  the  foreign  press. 
Even  the  Russians  were  shocked,  or  at  least 
annoyed,  by  the  gratuitous  savagery  of  the  thing. 
In  July  M.  Pobiedonostseff,  speaking  to  Mr. 
Arnold  White  on  the  subject,  said  everybody 
deplored  the  violence  shown  by  the  "late"  Chief 
of  Police  in  the  Marina  Rostscha  evictions.  This 
characteristic  lie  implied  that  the  Chief  of  Police 
had  either  died  or  been  removed.  Neither  was 
the  case.  The  Cossack  Yourkoffsky,  who  came 
to  Moscow  from  the  Kouban,  whip  in  hand,  an 
illiterate,  uncivilised,  menial  police  bully,  and  who 
worked  his  way  up  to  mastery  by  dint  of  sheer 
brute  cheek,  was  Chief  of  Police  then,  and  con- 
tinued to  be  until  the  beginning  of  this  present 
year  1892,  when  he  was  superseded  for  com- 
plicity in  a  scheme  of  plunder,  by  forgery  and 
embezzlement,  which  was  on  too  magnificent  a 
scale  for  even   Russia  to   pass  unnoticed.     That 


MARINA    ROSTSCHA    AND    "CIRCULARS"     215 

his  loss  of  office  and  disgrace  had  nothing-  to  do 
with  the  Jewish  question,  is  evident  from  the  fact 
that  his  successor,  Vlassoffsky,  is  an  even  more 
celebrated  Jew  baiter,  and  won  his  promotion  by 
excelling  all  previous  records  of  harsh  brutality, 
in  the  clearance  at  Rig"a.  It  was  he  who  con- 
fiscated  12,000  roubles  belonging  to  a  Jewish 
charitable  society  (although  it  had  a  ministerial 
permit),  on  the  ground  that  its  relief  books 
contained  no  Christian  names.  This  same 
Vlassoffsky  it  was  who,  wearied  of  the  trouble 
of  arresting  the  Jews  of  Riga  in  their  houses, 
authorised  their  seizure  on  the  streets,  and  gave 
five  roubles  reward  to  a  gorodovoi,  who,  on 
bringing  a  prisoner  in,  said  he  knew  he  was  a  Jew 
by  his  nose. 

The  raid  through  the  forest  was  continued  next 
day,  and  for  the  following  week,  to  find  the 
scattered  and  isolated  houses  which  had  been 
neglected  on  the  first  descent.  The  refugees 
were  given  three  days  in  which  to  sell  all  their 
goods  and  get  out  of  the  province.  From  this 
condition  to  absolute  spoliation  was  but  a  step. 
At  these  "  sales,"  out  in  the  woods,  chairs  were 
sold  for  a  penny  apiece  ;  beds  went  for  sixpence. 
No  one  obtained  money  enough  to  buy  a  railway 
ticket  to  the  Pale.  The  reign  of  terror  lasted 
until  all  but  some  dozen  or  fifteen  families  of  the 
whole  400  had  been  driven  from  their  homes. 
Then  an  English  lady,  resident  in  Moscow,  was 
able  by  intercession  with  her  bosom  friend,  the  wife 


2i6  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

of  one  of  the  Moscow  officials,  to  secure  a  respite 
for  the  miserable  remnant.  These  are  the  people 
whom  I  looked  for  and  was  unable  to  find  last 
year.      I  am  told  that  they,  too,  have  gone  now. 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  the  barbarities  of 
Marina  Rostscha,  because  there  they  were  ex- 
hibited on  a  circumscribed  stage,  and  can  be 
grasped  in  something  like  their  entirety.  It  is 
hopeless  to  give  an  equally  complete  notion  of 
what  happened  in  the  big  city  of  Moscow  simul- 
,taneously.  All  that  can  be  said  is  that  there 
were  many  hundreds  of  similar  domiciliary 
descents,  alike  by  day  and  by  night,  and  that 
Ihundreds  of  families  were  as  ruthlessly  turned  out 
bn  the  streets  as  any  of  the  sufferers  in  the  forest 
s^uburb.  The  stories  of  individual  affliction  could 
b^  given  here  by  scores.  One  distracted  Jewish 
girl,  an  eighteen-year-old  seamstress,  named 
Malka  Usilevna  Chasgorine,  who  had  come  to 
Moscow  from  the  village  of  Gradiansk,  in 
Mohilef,  being  chased  from  her  lodgings  and 
refused  food  or  refuge  because  she  was  a  Jewess, 
threw  herself  into  the  river.  She  was  rescued  by 
a  moujik,  and  kindly  Christians  made  up  a  purse 
to  enable  her  to  leave  town.  There  were  two 
perfectly  authenticated  cases  of  young  Jewish 
girls  of  respectable  families  and  unblemished 
character,  who  adopted  the  desperate  device  of 
reo-istering  themselves  as  prostitutes,  in  order  to 
be  allowed  to  remain  with  their  aged  parents  in 
the  city  where  they  were  born  ! 


MARINA  ROSTSCHA   AND   "CIRCULARS"     217 

Many  instances  could  be  cited  where  whole 
families  for  weeks  feared  to  sleep  at  night  in  their 
own  homes,  but  walked  about  in  the  suburbs  until 
morning,  or,  worse  still,  took  refuge  in  the 
bagnios  and  "bath-houses"  which  are  the  resort 
to  Moscow's  vilest  elements — and  were,  in  con- 
sequence, safe  from  police  interference. 

For  this  new  crusade  spared  no  one.  Though 
the  head  of  the  family  possessed  the  qualifications 
necessary  for  residence,  it  was  now  held  that  this 
did  not  extend  to  his  children  who  were  grown 
up.  The  police  were  the  sole  judges  as  to 
whether  they  were  grown  up  or  not. 

As  to  that,  the  police  were  the  sole  judges  of 
everything.  They  sent  out  many  people  who 
had  a  perfect  legal  right  to  remain.  Mr.  Fried- 
land,  a  civil  engineer,  and  Miss  Seldowicz,  a  cer- 
tificated physician,  were  both  protected,  nominally, 
by  their  professional  degrees.  That  mattered 
nothing  at  all.  The  former,  indeed,  appealed  to 
Yourkoffsky,  and  was  ordered  to  leave  within  ten 
hours  on  penalty  of  being  sent  by  dtape. 

\\\  dozens  of  other  towns  in  Central  Russia — 
Kaluga,  Tula,  Ribinsk,  Podolsk,  and  the  like — 
clearances  marked  by  the  same  brutality  and  the 
same  savage  disregard  for  law  or  decency  went 
on  in  this  Easter  week.  All  over  the  empire  the 
Jewish  communities  trembled  at  the  startling  news 
each  day  brought  them,  and  looked  to  a  tragic 
morrow  for  themselves. 

In  St.  Petersburg  General  Groesser  filled  all  the 


2i8  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

railway  stations  with  police,  to  detect  and  arrest 
travellers  suspected  of  being  fugitive  Jews  from 
Moscow  and  the  interior.  At  the  same  time  he 
issued  an  order  under  which  most  of  the  Jews 
living  in  the  capital  were  to  leave  by  May  3. 

Suddenly  it  was  announced  that  the  expulsions 
had  ceased.  The  first  statement  to  this  effect 
was  officially  suggested  to  the  correspondent  in 
St.  Petersburg  on  May  5.  The  next  day  some 
of  the  inspired  journals  contained  hints  that  the 
whole  anti-Jewish  policy  would  probably  be 
abandoned. 

Nobody  seems  to  have  guessed  for  the  moment 
what  this  apparent  abrupt  volte  face  meant.  In 
some  quarters  it  was  even  supposed  that  Russia 
had  seen  the  folly  and  inhumanity  of  its  course, 
and  repented. 

In  a  couple  of  days,  however,  strong  light  was 
thrown  upon  this  puzzling  enigma  by  the 
announcement  that  Baron  Alphonse  de  Roth- 
schild, the  head  of  the  Paris  house,  had  decided  to 
withdraw  from  that  Russian  loan  of  600,000, ooof» 
which  was  supposed  to  have  been  settled  the 
previous  month."'"  It  turns  out  now  that  he 
notified  the  Russian  Ministry  of  Finance  of  this 
decision  on  May  2.  The  ensuing  declarations, 
that  the  Jewish  expulsions  had  ceased,  and  were 
not  to  begin  again,  had  no  grain  of  truth  what- 
ever. They  represented  merely  the  Russian 
officials'  desire  to  throw  dust  in  the  keen  eyes  of 

*  See  p.  185. 


MARINA   ROSTSCHA   AND    "CIRCULARS"     219 

the  Rothschilds,  and  lure  them  and  the  other 
great  Jewish  houses  into  going  on  with  the  loan. 
Even  after  the  reported  failure  of  the  loan,  and 
the  consequent  tumble  of  Russian  securities  on  the 
Bourses,  the  St.  Petersburg  papers,  and  the  Russian 
Embassies  in  various  Continental  capitals,  kept 
alive  the  false  report  that  the  Rothschilds  had  not 
really  declined,  and  that  the  loan  was  only  delayed, 
not  lost. 

When  this  pretence  could  no  longer  be  main- 
tained, disguise  was  abandoned  swiftly  enough. 
On  May  11  the  Novoe  Vremya  launched  a  bitter 
and  half-crazy  attack  against  the  Rothschilds, 
insinuating  that  their  adoption  of  the  Jewish 
pretext  was  a  mere  blind  to  cover  their  in- 
solvency, and  demanding  immediate  vengeance 
upon  all  the  Jews  in  Russia.  The  GrasJidauin 
and  other  anti-Semitic  papers  joined  the  hue  and 
cry  at  full  yelp.  The  Moscow  Gazette,  in  this 
fierce  delirium  of  passion,  invented  the  remarkable 
theory  that  the  Jews  were  polygamJsts,  and  urged 
that  the  police  should  forthwith  take  over  custody 
of  the  Hebrew  marriage  rolls  kept  by  the  rabbis  / 
in  the  synagogues.  ■' 

The  persecution,  despite  official  hints  and  state- 
ments, had  never  stopped  at  all.  It  may  well  be 
that  the  Finance  Minister,  Vishnegradsky,  tried 
to  stop  it,  at  least  until  the  loan  was  realised. 
There  is  no  doubt  whatever  of  his  intense  disgust 
at  seeing  the  Rothschilds  and  Bleichroders  driven 
away  from  his  bait  just  at  the  critical  moment  by 


220  'J'HE    NEW    EXODUS 

the  hair-brained  fanatics  and  knaves  in  control. 
He  was,  and  is,  by  no  means  alone  in  this  disgust. 
I  talked  with  many  Russian  merchants  and  men 
of  affairs  on  this  subject.  They  rarely  expressed 
concern  about  the  sufferings  of  the  Jews.  They 
were  unanimous  in  deploring  the  stupidity  which 
had  precipitated  their  sufferings  before  the  loan 
Ihad  been  actually  secured. 

On  May  17,  the  Grand  Duke  Serge  made  his 
[formal  entry  into   Moscow.     At  his  side  was  his 
wife,   the  pale  and   sad-faced    Hessian    Princess, 
who  is  a  granddaughter  of  the  English  Queen,  and 
who  had  only  recently  been  dragooned  into  pre- 
tending conversion  to  the  Greek  Orthodox  Church. 
Nothing  could  be  at  once  more  pathetic  and  more 
revolting  than  the  true  story  of  that  "  conversion." 
The    marriage,    so    called,    took    place    in     1884. 
Very  soon    thereafter  those  circles    in    Germany 
and  England  which  first  catch  gossip  as  it  filters 
down  from  royalty  itself,  began  to  be  stirred  by 
strange  rumours  of  a  terrible  nature  concerning 
the  bride's  unhappiness.      It  was  not  long  before 
the  Princess  left  her  unspeakable  husband,  reveal- 
ing to  her  relatives  as  her  justification  a  story  of 
his  infamy  which  cannot  be  suggested  in  print. 
These  relatives,  or  some  of  them,  persuaded  her 
to  reconsider  her   action.      Pressure  was  exerted 
from  the  highest  quarters  in  St.  Petersburg,  and 
in   more  than   one   other  great   capital,    and   the 
Princess  Elizabeth  finally  with  reluctance  returned. 
It  is  universally  alleged  and  believed  in   Russia 


MARINA    ROSTSCHA   AND    "  CIRCUr.ARS"     221 

that  two  of  Serge's  favourites,  his  chaplain  and 
his    intendant,   Count    Stenbock-Fermer,   worked 
upon  the  credulity  of  this  virgin  wife  by  assuring 
her  that  her  husband's  neglect~was  due  solely  to  \ 
her  religious  heresy,  and  that  everything  would  I 
be  changed  if  she  accepted  the  Orthodox  faith.  \ 
When  she  at  last  consented,  there  were   special 
references  made  in  sermons  and  Church  papers  to 
the  certainty  that  the  saints  would  now  bless  her 
with  children. 

The  Jews  of  Moscow  saw  this  couple — the  half- 
witted and  obscene  Prince  and  the  Princess  who 
had  protested  to  John  of  Cronstadt  and  to  her 
relatives  against  the  mockery  of  her  "  conversion  " 
— ride  in  state  through  the  Holy  City  to  the 
Iverskaya  Chasovnia,  and  prostrate  themselves 
under  the  Ikon  of  the  Iberian  Mother  of  God  [ 
before  entering  the  Kremlin.  Conceive  the 
bitterness  of  the  reflection  in  the  minds  of  these 
Jews — that  it  w^as  avowedly  to  purify  Moscow  for 
this  pair  that  they  and  their  children  were  being 
torn  from  their  homes  and  sent  to  wander  as  out- 
casts over  the  face  of  the  earth  ! 

A  fortnight  later  the  Czar  himself  came  to 
Moscow  with  his  wife  and  family,  on  their  way  to 
the  Crimea.  A  Jewish  veteran  named  Israel 
Deyel,  a  corporal  in  the  reserves,  had  written  a 
most  pathetic  petition '^''  that  at  least  the  Hebrew 
soldiers  who  had  served  their  time  might  be 
allowed  to  remain  in  the  city  of  their  birth.      It  is 

^  Sec  Appendix  A. 


222  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

known  that  the  Czar  actually  saw  this  petition. 
It  is  known  also  that  Deyel  was  sent  to  prison, 
and  that  the  expulsions  now  proceeded  more 
fiercely  than  ever. 

Up  to  the  23rd  of  July  1S91,  when  the  funds  of 
the  Moscow  committee  had  become  exhausted, 
nearly  27,000  roubles  had  been  expended  and 
2365  railway  tickets  purchased.  As  children 
travel  free,  this  latter  figure  by  no  means  measures 
even  the  assisted  part  of  the  exodus.  If  we  put 
the  children  for  whose  elders  tickets  were  bought 
at  the  low  number  of  635,  it  would  give  us  3000 
people  who  needed  assistance  to  get  out  of  the 
town.  The  committee  estimated  that  about  one 
in  four  of  the  Jews  quitting  Moscow  had  to  apply 
for  help.  This  would  raise  the  number  of 
refugees,  from  March  up  to  the  latter  part  of  July 
1 89 1,  to  12,000.  Doubtless  that  estimate  closely 
approximates  the  truth. 

I  have  described  with  some  minuteness  the 
classes  which  made  up  these  first  12,000  exiles. 
There  was  a  sprinkling  of  well-to-do  people 
among  them,  but  the  vast  majority  were  artisans, 
managers  of  small  workshops,  and  others  to  whom 
this  sudden  enforced  expulsion  meant  ruin. 

To  be  compelled  thus  without  preparation  all  at 
once  to  sell  everything  and  get  out — and  that  in  a 
hostile  town  where  no  Christian  would  pay  the 
debts  he  owed  a  Jew  or  buy  his  goods  for  more 
than  the  merest  pittance — did  literally  involve 
ruin.     A  case  came  under  my  personal  observa- 


.MARINA    ROSTSCHA   AND    '-CIRCULARS"     223 

tion — that  of  a  Hebrew  joiner,  some  of  whose 
excellent  work  I  saw  in  the  house  of  a  friend — a 
hard-working,  temperate  man,  who  had  been 
living  by  his  trade  in  Moscow  for  twenty  years. 
He  had  a  large  family  and  practically  no  savings. 
The  few  roubles  he  had  put  by  went  through  May 
and  June  to  keep  the  police  quiet.  In  July,  when 
he  could  pay  no  more  backsheesh,  he  was 
brusquely  given  ten  days  in  which  to  leave.  His 
household  effects  were  worth  perhaps  $100.  He 
was  able  to  sell  them  for  S4.  I  speak  of  my  own 
knowledge,  because  I  saw  the  man  quit  Moscow 
with  his  family  and  saw  my  friend  help  buy  the 
tickets  through  one  of  his  clerks.  He  did  not 
dare  go  to  the  station  himself. 

But  up  to  the  time  of  my  visit  to  Moscow  the 
more  prosperous  of  the  artisan  class  were  still 
clinging  to  the  hope  that  if  they  could  only  raise 
money  enough  for  the  police  they  might  manage 
to  remain.  The  Passover  edict,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, had  only  instructed  the  authorities  of 
Moscow  to  "consider  and  adopt  measures  for 
their  removal."  That  left  a  broad  marq^in  for 
bribery. 

While  I  was  in  Moscow  came  the  reorulations  of 
July  28,  1 89 1.  They  bore  this  date,  but  they 
were  not  then  officially  promulgated.  A  week 
later  their  provisions  were  only  a  matter  of  hear- 
say, and  copies  were  vaguely  known  to  be  in  the 
hands  of  certain  Jews. 

The  first  three  clauses  dealt  with   the   Jewish 


224  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

artisan  class,  whose  rights  had  been  suspended  in 

/  April.      This  new  edict  put  an  end  to  their  hopes 

/  of  buying  further  delay.     They  were  now  divided 

I   into  three  categories — (i)  those  living  in  Moscow 

only    three    years,    unmarried    or    childless,   and 

employing  only  one  workman  ;    (2)   those   of  six 

years'    residence,    with    four    children    and    four 

workmen;     (3)     those     having     "a     very     long 

residence,"  a  "  large  family,"  and  more  than  four 

workmen.       For     these     classes     expulsion    was 

decreed  on   this  sliding  scale:    Within   (i)  from 

three  to  six  months  ;  (2)  from  six  to  nine  months  ; 

(3)  from  nine  months  to  one  year. 

Of  course,  this  provision  of  a  minimum  and 
maximum  time  was  solely  for  the  benefit  of  the 
police.  It  may  be  imagined  how  they  peddled 
out  the  extra  time,  by  months,  then  weeks,  then 
days ! 

This  was  bad  enough,  but  its  rigours  had  been 

argely  discounted.     Two-thirds  of  the  people  at 

horn    it   was   aimed    had   already   fled.     There 

as,  however,  in  the  tail  of  these  "  regulations " 

of  July  28  a  sharp  and  unexpected  sting.     It  was 

in  these  words  : 

"  All  those  who  have  been  living  in  Moscow  by 
virtue  of  possession  of  Circular  No.  30  of  the 
Minister  of  Interior  (Markoff)  of  1880  are  divided 
into  two  categories  : 

"  A.  All  clerks,  personal  attendants,  and  those 
of  small  occupations  must  go  within  six  months. 

"  B.    All  engaged  in  trade,  especially  in  large 


MARINA   ROSTSCHA   AND    "CIRCULARS"     225 

factories  owned  by  Russians,  must  go  within  one 
year." 

I  was  on  the  Bourse  at  noon  one  day  when  the 
first  whisper  that  the  "circulars"  had  been  sus- 
pended was  sent  the  rounds  of  the  floor.  A 
strange,  motley,  picturesque  crowd  is  that  which 
gathers  on  the  Moscow  Exchange — with  sleek, 
well-clad  city  merchants  and  bankers  rubbing 
shoulders  against  uncouth  capitalists  from  the 
Volga,  the  Crimea,  or  far-off  Archangel ;  with 
Tartar  traders  from  remote  Siberia  and  the 
Chinese  border ;  with  olive-skinned,  doll-faced 
Persians ;  with  bright-eyed,  hawk-visaged  Bo- 
khara Jews;  with  Armenians^  Cp,ssacks,  Finns, 
Poles,  Greeks,  Turks,  English,  and  Germans ; 
above  all,  with  thin,  silent,  observant,  masterful 
Russian  Jews — a  weird,  cosmopolitan  medley  of 
races,  of  costumes,  and  of  jargons,  in  which 
Russian  is  heard,  perhaps,  least  of  alh\ 

I  shall  never  forget  how  the  whispered  rumour 
about  the  "  circulars "  ran  through  this  throng. 
One  could  trace  its  progress  as  it  went ;  men 
ceased  talking  quotations  and  crops,  and  their 
faces  lost  the  flush  of  commercial  eagerness  ;  little 
groups  formed  apart  to  discuss  it  in  undertones. 
A  hush  fell  over  the  hall.  We  were  in  Russia, 
and  no  man  dared  speak  aloud  about  this  thing- 
he  had  heard. 

The  "  circular "  class,  whose  doom  was  thus 
announced,  was  composed  of  a  much  higher 
social  grade  of  Hebrews  than  had  previously  been 


2  26  'I'HE    NEW    EXODUS 

touched.  The  phrases  "  clerks,  personal  attend- 
ants," and  "those  engaged  in  trade"  hardly 
convey  an  idea  of  the  half  of  those  who  in 
Moscow  held  the  circular  of  1880.  Only  a  few 
days  before,  a  professional  man  of  distinction 
and  means  had  said  to  me  that  he  could  not  be 
molested  because  he  was  protected  by  a  Minis- 
terial circular ! 

He  was  in  London,  a  homeless  wanderer, 
before  many  months.  He  had  with  him  here,  as 
a  companion  in  exile,  an  intelligent  and  energetic 
young  man  whose  firm  in  Moscow  did  an  annual 
business  of  ^50,000,  but  who  had  not  been  in 
trade  the  requisite  number  of  years  to  secure  the 
privileges  of  a  merchant  of  the  First  Guild,  and 
who  was  accordingly  living  under  the  "  circular." 
The  decree  of  expulsion  found  him  newly  married, 
with  a  handsome  house  which  he  had  just  fitted 
up  with  something  like  /,'20oo  worth  of  furniture. 
He  unhesitatingly  resolved  to  leave  the  country 
at  once,  and  not  haggle  with  the  police  about 
the  few  extra  months  he  might  buy  from  them. 
He  applied  to  the  railway  officials — who  are,  of 
course,  also  Government  officials — for  a  car  to 
transport  his  furniture  to  the  frontier.  They  were 
very  sorry,  but  all  their  cars  were  in  use,  and  it 
might  be  months  before  they  could  let  him  have 
one.  He  learned  on  inquiry  that  this  was  their 
stereotyped  reply  to  all  such  applications  from 
Jews.  Then  he  tried  to  sell  his  furniture,  and 
encountered  another  combination  against  his  race 


MARINA    ROSTSCHA   AND    '-CIRCULARS"     227 

of  much  the  same  stamp.  No  one  would  bid 
more  than  a  few  hundred  roubles  ;  my  recollection 
is  that  the  sum  finally  offered  was  £60.  Then 
the  young  merchant  came  to  a  heroic  resolve.  The 
last  night  he  was  to  spend  in  Moscow — he  had 
sent  his  wife  ahead — he  locked  himself  up  in  his 
house  with  saw  and  chisel,  and  by  morning  he  had 
utterly  disfigured  and  destroyed  every  stick  of  his 
fine  furniture.  If  he  could  neither  keep  it  nor  sell 
it,  at  least  he  provided  that  no  one  else  should 
enjoy  it. 

The  "circular"  class  was  supposed  to  comprise 
800  families — a  total  of  4000  souls.  There  were 
a  few  poor  people  among  them  ;  the  bulk  were 
in  comfortable  circumstances,  and  some — for  the 
most  part  manufacturers,  brokers,  and  agents — 
were  what  is  called  wealthy  in  Russia. 

As  an  indication  of  this  I  had  a  letter  from 
Moscow  in  October  saying  that,  now  the  "  circular  " 
people  were  leaving,  the  scenes  at  the  Smolenski 
station  were  of  quite  a  different  character  from 
those  I  witnessed  in  the  summer.  Then  one  was 
chiefly  impressed  with  the  poverty  of  the  poor 
fugitives  being  packed  into  third-class  cars.  Now, 
my  correspondent  said,  most  of  those  leaving  went 
in  second-class  carriages. 

Putting  aside  for  a  moment  the  cruelty  and 
wrong  done  to  these  people,  try  to  imagine  the 
grave  self-injury  inflicted  by  a  country  which  thus 
blindly  chases  out  a  whole  great  class  of  mer- 
chants, manufacturers,  and  skilled  workmen,  who 


228  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

are  everywhere  a  stimulating  and  important 
factor  in  the  commercial  life  of  that  country. 
The  "circular"  class  alone  are  said  to  have 
employed  in  Moscow  and  vicinity  25,000  Russian 
workmen. 

There  was,  indeed,  in  this  edict  expelling  the 
"  circular "  people  an  obscure  phrase  excepting 
from  its  operation  certain  "  very  large  factories  " — 
but  this  in  practice  covered  only  four  establish- 
ments, whose  influential  Russian  owners  had 
Jewish  managers  whom  they  desired  not  to  lose. 
One  clause  provides  that,  if  Jews  of  Section  B 
can  give  the  police  good  reasons,  their  stay  may 
be  extended  another  year.  A  gentleman  whom  I 
met  in  Moscow  asked  a  police  official  if  it  would 
be  a  "  good  reason "  that  immediate  expulsion 
would  almost  entirely  ruin  him  and  his  family.  I 
made  a  minute  at  the  tim^e  of  the  reply  : 

"  No,"  said  the  official  quite  good-naturedly, 
"  you  must  show  that  Russians  will  be  directl}- 
injured  by  your  going.  Injury  to  yourself  is  no 
reason  at  all.  The  Government  doesn't  care 
whether  you  have  a  shirt  to  your  back  or  not." 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THE   FLIGHT  FROM    MOSCOW 

Of  necessity  one  must  study  an  exodus  on  tlie 
road.  I  was  not  fortunate  enough  anywhere  to 
see  the  c^/ape — that  melancholy  survival  of  me- 
diaeval brutality  of  which  Mr.  Kennan  makes  so 
much.  But  on  every  side  I  heard  stories  of 
them,  and  was  shown  proofs  that  men  and 
women  against  whom  absolutely  nothing  but 
their  nationality  was  alleged  had  been  marched 
through  the  streets  in  chains  and  in  the  company 
of  thieves  and  other  criminal  refuse. 

It  was  not  through  lack  of  looking  for  one  that 
I  failed  to  see  the  ctape.  On  fully  a  score  of 
occasions,  in  various  Russian  towns,  I  watched 
the  whole  scene  at  the  railway  station  at  the 
hour  when  the  cheap  train  was  to  start  westward 
with  its  freight  of  homeless  exiles.  In  Moscow  I 
went  almost  every  afternoon  to  witness  at  the 
Smolenski  station  the  departure  of  the  seven  o'clock 
train  for  Brest-Litovsk,  by  which  at  that  time 
practically  all  the  refugees  were  making  their  way 
to  the  Pale.  -^Vhat  I  saw  daily  at  this  station 
remains  still  most  vivid  among  my  recollections 
of  Russia.     As  a  little  boy  I  used  to  associate  our 


230  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

f  V 

CivilJW^ai^entirely  with  the  old  wooden  depot  of 

my  native  town,  where  I  saw  troops  gathered 
from  time"  t6  time  to  go  away,  and  watched  the 
obETng  or~even  more  cruel  dry-eyed  anguish  of 
thewives,  mothers,  and  daughters  left  behind. 
'hose  chijdisli  impressions — half  forgotten  for 
lany  years— all  came  back  bright  and  sharply 
de^ed  at  si^ht  of  the  Jewish  fugitives  in  the 
Smolenski  station. 

Most  of  them  were  on  hand  an  hour  or  more 
before  the  time  for  the  train  to  start.  The  long, 
broad  platform  was  dotted  with  piles  of  their 
luggage  heaped  against  the  walls.  The  character 
of  this  impedimenta  showed  obviously  enough 
that  its  owners  were  going  for  good — spoke 
eloquently  of  a  people  torn  up  by  the  roots. 
There  were  pet  pieces  of  furniture  wrapped  in 
sheets,  and  crockery  encased  in  bedding  and  tied 
with  ropes.  One  saw  carpets,  picture-frames, 
candlesticks,  big  leather-bound  books,  even  bird- 
cages, all  made  into  parcels  as  portable  as  possible, 
with  a  few  to  be  taken  free  as  personal  baggage. 
Everywhere  there  were  teapots  fastened  outside 
the  hand-luggage,  so  as  to  be  easy  of  access 
during  the  wearisome  journey  of  two  nights  and  a 
day  across  to  the  Pale. 

The  management  of  this  baggage  lay  heavily 
upon  the  minds  of  the  fugitives.  They  flitted 
incessantly  about,  dragging  it  from  one  point  to 
another,  as  opinions  fluctuated  among  them 
concerning    the  probable  attitude  of  the  railway 


fl 


THE   FLIGHT    FROM    MOSCOW  231 

officials  toward  it.  At  each  platform  along  the 
train  stood  a  peasant  in  uniform  whom  we  would 
call  a  brakeman,  and  his  principal  task  was  to  see 
that  none  of  this  unauthorised  baoro-aore  orot  into 
the  car,  where  now  dozens  of  people  were 
crowdinof  themselves  together  on  the  narrow 
wooden  benches.  I  watched  for  a  lono-  time  the 
manoeuvres  of  two  or  three  groups  of  elderly  men 
— thin,  flat-chested,  long-bearded  men  in  caps  and 
caftans — who  stood  guard  over  little  heaps  of 
household  c^oods.  Everv  now  and  atrain,  when 
the  brakeman's  attention  seemed  to  be  diverted, 
one  of  them  would  dart  across  the  train  and  try 
to  hand  something  through  the  open  window  to  a 
friend  inside.  Occasionally  he  succeeded ;  more 
often  the  guard  ran  over  and  forcibly  intervened. 
In  this  latter  case  the  Jew  would  go  back  and 
keep  sharp  look-out  for  a  chance  to  repeat  the 
attempt.  Once  I  saw  the  brakeman,  in  his 
anger,  dash  a  big,  rope-bound  chest,  which  they 
had  nearly  dragged  into  the  car,  to  the  platform 
with  such  violence  that  it  was  broken  and  its 
contents  scattered  for  yards  about.  The  men 
who  had  it  in  charge  meekly  got  down  and 
gathered  them  up  and  fastened  the  box  together 
again.  Then  they  dragged  it  to  another  part  of 
the  train,  and  eventually  smuggled  it  through  a 
window. 

The  whole  pathos  of  the  Jews'  position  in  Russia. 
— their  ^4tyrf^=5urtenng   abasement,    their    fawning 
abse  nee     of     dignity,     their     tireless      patience. 


THE    NEW   EXODUS 


thpi'r  rnrinnt;  pPrt;ic;f;^[i(^^  of   rhrlncr    in    little   things 

— was  in  this  picture.  "  -^*-^ 

It  could  not  be  said  that  the  train  hands  or  any- 
other  officials  connected  with  the  railway  behaved 
with  special  roughness  to  these  Jews.  Indeed, 
with  the  solitary  exception  I  have  noted,  wherein 
one  could  not  deeply  blame  the  man,  they  seemed 
to  be  rather  amiably  disposed  than  otherwise. 
This  was  of  interest,  as  confirming  what,  over 
and  over  again,  intelligent  and  candid  Jewish 
merchants  and  professional  men  had  told  me — 
viz.,  that  the  Russian  peasants  do  not  themselves 
dislikg__the  Tew,  and  that  brnTTTtrg^persecutiori. 
and  -feke^Eutal  spirit  in  whicnTl  'ni  caffied  oilT^ 
proceed &ntij:£lv    from     aboveT'-frkering' ^^own 


HolySynod,  to  the 
lowliest  policeman  or  tcJiinovnik  who  yearns  for 
promotion  and  the  favour  of  his  superiors. 

The  trainmen  did,  however,  behave  with  con- 
spicuous curtness  to  the  three  or  four  long-haired 
village  priests  or  popes  of  the  Orthodox  Church, 
who  were  also  travelling  third-class,  and  who 
bothered  them  with  questions  or  by  not  having 
the  proper  tickets  for  their  luggage.  One  of 
these,  a  quizzical-faced,  drunken,  and  dishevelled 
fellow,  with  a  patched  and  muddy  gown,  and  a 
woman's  straw  hat  perched  jauntily  on  his  head, 
was  at  last  thrown  summarily  out  of  a  car  and 
went  away  smiling  blandly. 

The  daily  average  of  Jewish  fugitives,  during 
my  observations  in  July  and  August,  seemed  to 


THE   FLKiHT    FROM    MOSCOW 


233 


be  about  fifteen  families.  In  only  one  instance 
did  I  see  any  going  other  than  by  the  third-class 
or  presenting  an  appearance  of  prosperity. 

All  the  women,  however,  were  dressed  well.  It 
was  only  too  evident  that  they  were  wearing 
their  best  clothes.  At  Hamburg  I  encountered 
much  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  class  of  female 
exiles  who  are  in  rags  and  tatters.  They  did 
not  come  from  Moscow.  'Hues^  women  at  the 
Smolenski  station — like  most  of_the  Jewesses 
I  saw  everywhere  throughout  _^ussia — were 
much  less  characteristic  in  t}^^pe^J;han  the  men. 
These  latter — pallid,  keen-eyed,  nervous,  bearded, 
nriVpi-alg  jp  I'pipp.  form,  and  tjrei,LUlL  LOTrfd  iiQfc 
be  mistaken  anywhere.  Ru|-  thpir  ^^i\v'^<^  ^^^^ 
daughters  for  the  most  pail  luiil"  i1 — W4e»_the 
comfortable  and  ugly  Slav o-Saxon  peasc 
rrvnm1'j1i|i|n^  I/^'^''  Tllprp  wprp  a  \e.wexce.p~ 
tions.  I  saw  one  little  girl,  poorly  clad  save  for 
a  thick  black  satin  pelisse  much  too  large  for  her, 
staggering  along  under  a  big  bundle  of  bedding, 
who  had  a  face  that  might  have  come  Irom  a 
frieze  in  the  Palace  of  Saigpn^^ 

Only  here  and  there  did  one  see  a  young  man 
among  these  exiles.  The  Jewish  vouth  seems 
to  be  in  the  army  or  already  safe  beyonjl-^he 
frontier. ' 

As~a~rule,  there  was  little  enough  of  tears  or 
lamentation.  During  the  four  months  then 
drawing  to  a  close,  over  10,000  people  had 
come    to    that    Smolenski    station    with    all  that 


234  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

was  left  of  their  belongings,  had  said  good-bye 
to  the  only  people  in  the  world  they  knew,  and 
had  gone  forth  to  strange  lands  or  to  the  horrors 
of  the  Pale.  It  is  small  wonder  that  most  of 
those  I  saw  looked  as  if  they  had  forgotten  how 
to  weep. 

One  hideous  woman  of  fifty  I  recall,  by  the  aid 
of  a  rough  sketch  among  my  notes,  who  cried  a 
great  deal.  She  was  leaving  behind  her  an  even 
uglier  son — a  repellent-faced  young  man  who  was 
the  object  of  her  fondest  grief.  He  was  immensely 
bored  by  this,  and  was  continually  wandering  off 
to  talk  with  a  group  of  menfolk,  and  being 
summoned  back  for  fresh  maternal  kisses.  The 
parting  of  two  young  sisters,  who  clung,  sobbing, 
to  each  other  through  the  window  till  the  train 
moved,  makes  another  picture  in  my  memory. 
The  one  who  was  left  fainted  on  the  platform  as 
the  carriages  began  gliding  by.  Most  marked 
feature  of  all  were  the  prolonged  fervent  caresses 
bestowed  by  those  who  were  remaining  upon  the 
little  children  in  the  cars.  The  babes  were  held 
up  to  the  windows,  and  kissed  and  kissed  again 
by  the  elders  outside,  with  a  depth  of  emotion 
which  seemed  to  belong  to  the  chamber  of  death 
rather  than  to  a  railway  station. 

To  and  fro,  meanwhile,  among  these  scenes  of 
misery  high  Russian  officials  in  uniform  and  well- 
to-do  Russians  of  private  station  sauntered  un- 
concernedly, lighting  cigarettes  and  chatting  as 
they  strolled,  without  so  much  as  a  sign  that  they 


THE    FLKIHT    FROM    MOSCOW  235 

were  aware  of  the  presence  of  these  Jews  about 
them.  They  positively  never  looked  at  them.  I 
was  given  many  quiet  and  friendly  intimations  in 
Russia  that  it  was  considered  extremely  bad  form 
even  to  observe  incidents  and  occurrences  which 
the  authorities  were  responsible  for.  If  "well- 
intentioned  "  Russians  see  the  dtape  coming  down 
the  street  they  look  the  other  way.  Despotism 
must  regard  this  as  its  ultimate  triumph. 

On  the  evening  of  Thursday,  August  6,  I 
visited  the  Smolenski  station  for  the  last  time. 
The  scenes  that  evening  attending  the  departure  of 
the  train  seemed  to  reach  a  climax  of  harrowing 
interest.  There  were  more  small  children  than 
usual,  perhaps.  The  tragedy  of  it  all — the  igno- 
miny, the  injustice  which  had  darkened  these 
wretched  lives  before,  the  cruel  doubt  and  un- 
certainty of  their  future — oppressed  my  spirits.  I 
could  not  resist  the  impulse  to  take  off  ni}^  hat  as 
the  long  "emigrant"  train  slowly  moved  out  oi^ 
the  station.  It  was  such  a  solemn  salute  as  one 
pays,  in  Roman  Catholic  countries,  to  the  passing 
of  a  hearse.  ^ — 

At  that  very  moment  the  glass  in  the  roof 
overhead  rattled  with  the  concussion  of  cannon 
reports.  Again  and  again,  I  know  not  how  many 
times,  the  noise  of  big  guns  firing  not  far  away 
shook  the  air.  The  explanation  was  at  hand  out- 
side. Sonie  mile  further  west  were  the  grounds 
of  the  French  Exhibition  in  Moscow.  That 
evening  the   Jew-baiting    Mayor,    Alexeieft",    was 


236  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

giving  a  banquet  there  to  the  visiting  officers  of 
the  French  fleet,  who  had  journeyed  from  Cron- 
stadt  as  his  guests. 

The  hapless  Jews  in  that  train,  as  they  took 
their  farewell  look  upon  the  domes  and  minarets 
of  the  Holy  City  wherein  most  of  them  had  been 
born,  may  have  wondered  what  the  cannon  were 
firing  for.  The  most  acridly  sarcastic  mind  among 
them  could  have  hit  upon  no  more  bitter  irony 
than  is  furnished  by  the  fact  that  the  salutes  were 
being  fired  in  honour  of  the  partnership  newly 
1  formed  between  this  monstrous  and  unclean  des- 
[potism  and  the  French  Republic  ! 

From  the  Smolenski  station  it  is  but  a  short 
walk  up  the  broad  Dolgoroukoffskaya  to  the  chief 
forwarding  prison  of  Moscow.  The  high  white 
walls,  with  their  round,  castellated  towers  at  the 
corners,  rise  abruptly  from  the  side-walk.  The 
prison  itself  is  a  red  brick  building,  well  inside 
these  walls,  with  few  windows  and  those  heavily 
barred.  It  is  to  this  prison  that  all  the  Jews 
arrested  on  the  night  of  the  descent  upon  the 
Glebovskaya  Podvoryeh  were  dragged ;  it  is 
from  this  that  they,  and  many  who  came  later, 
have  been  sent  away  by  ctape — that  is,  marched 
down  the  public  thoroughfare  in  chains,  or  under 
heavy  Cossack  guard,  to  the  railway  station. 

Mr.  Arnold  White,  accepting  here  as  elsewhere 
the  assurances  that  polite  Russian  officials  have 
made  to  him  over  the  dinner-table,  has  taken  it 
upon    himself   to    deny  that  any  Jews  were  thus 


THE    FLIGHT    FROM    MOSCOW  237 

sent  unless  they  were  criminals.  American  officials 
in  Russia  have  been  quoted  to  me  as  authorities 
for  this  same  statement. 

A  devoted  man,  to  whom  the  Jews  of  Russia 
and  of  the  world  owe  a  greater  debt  than  they  can 
ever  repay,  and  whose  name  it  will  be  possible  to 
mention  when,  a  few  months  hence,  he  has  left 
Russia  for  good,  last  autumn  collected  for  me  in 
various  towns  a  list  of  eighty-eight  persons  who 
were  marched  out  of  Moscow  by  (^tape,  and  against 
whom  no  charge  of  criminal  conduct — unless  it  be 
criminal  for  a  Jew  to  shrink  from  beggary  and 
expatriation — was  brought.  They  were  taken 
publicly  through  the  streets,  most  of  them  in  chains 
and  all  in  the  enforced  company  of  common  jail- 
birds, at  eleven  o'clock  on  Monday  mornings. 
This  list  was  published  in  the  New  York  Times  of 
December  7,  1891,*  and  subsequently  in  Darkest 
Russia.     No  detail  of  it  has  been  controverted. 

The  gruesome-looking  manacles  which  figure 
as  a  badge  upon  the  cover  of  this  book,  and  which 
are  now  in  my  possession,  were  worn  out  of 
Moscow  on  June  i,  1892,  by  Jossel  Revsin,  a 
Jewish  artisan  who  was  marched  publicly  away  in 
a  chain  gang  of  criminals  and  vagabonds,  solely 
because  of  his  race  and  religion.  In  the  same 
('tape  was  another  handcuffed  Jew,  Israel  Rassner, 
and  two  Jewesses,  Rivka  Krein  and  Feiea 
Beresinova.  The  women  were  not  in  irons,  but 
they  were  a  part  of  the  dtape.    V  All  four  were  thus 

*  See  Appendix  B. 


238  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

cony£^ie4-4nto  the  Pale,  whence  they  eventually 
emerged_aod  made  their  way  to  England  and 
America.     Althouo-h  he  did  not  learn  their  names, 

o 

these  were  the  unhappy  wretches  whom  Mr. 
Romanis,  the  hard-working  and  candid  corre- 
spondent, saw  being  driven  through  the  streets  of 
Moscow  on  June  i,  and  described  in  the  Daily 
News  of  June  6. 

Space  will  permit  only  the  most  cursory  glance 
at  the  terrible  story  of  Moscow  during  the  year 
which  has  elapsed  since  the  Passover  decrees. 
No  other  city  in  modern  times  has  offered  such 
a  wantonly  abhorrent  chronicle  of  evil  deeds  and 
cruel  instincts  to  an  offended  Christendom. 

The  Grand  Duke  Serge  will  not,  it  is  said, 
complete  his  second  year  of  office  as  Governor- 
General.  His  brutal  manners,  his  total  neglect  of 
his  duties,  and  the  now  general  knowledge  of  his 
personal  character,  have  been  too  much  for  even 
Moscow.  He  finds  himself  scowled  at  on  the 
streets,  and  hissed  on  the  race-course.  In  conse- 
quence, he  spends  almost  all  his  time  out  on  his 
estate  of  Illinskaya,  surrounded  by  the  group  of 
favourites  whose  names  are  mentioned  under  one's 
breath.  He  pays  no  attention  whatever  to  the 
tasks  imposed  by  routine  upon  a  Governor-General. 
Of  these,  by  far  the  most  important  is  the  hearing 
of  appeals  and  complaints,  and  the  reception  of 
petitions.  Prince  Dolgoroukoff  used  to  see  every 
one.  Serge  sees  no  one.  Of  all  the  hundreds  of 
petitions    sent   to   him,   the   first    has    yet    to    be 


'I'HE    FLKiHT    FROM    MOSCOW  239 

acknowledg-ed  or  answered.  To  make  matters 
worse,  he  does  not  even  leave  his  chief  intendant, 
Istomin,  to  attend  to  the  Moscow  business,  but 
has  him  half  the  time  at  Illinskaya. 

This  Istomin  is  another  sinister  figure  in  the 
group  which  governs  Moscow  under  the  favour  of 
the  Holy  Synod.  He  is  a  man  of  university 
degree,  who,  after  several  failures  in  life,  went  to 
St.  Petersburg  and  was  lucky  enough  to  get  on 
the  blind  side  of  Pobiedonostseff,  who  made  him 
editor  of  his  official  paper  at  a  salary  of  8000 
roubles.  Working  his  way  carefully,  he  obtained 
a  pious  reputation  as  a  relentless  anti-Semite  and 
a  capable  man  of  affairs,  and  was  picked  out  as 
bear  leader  and  general  manager  to  Serge,  when 
that  simpleton  was  selected  for  Moscow.  The 
Jews  of  the  "  Holy  City"  regard  Istomin  as  their 
real  grand  inquisitor. 

Of  the  scores  of  domestic  tracjedies  over  which 
this  man  has  been  proud  to  preside,  perhaps  this 
is  the  most  characteristic.  It  happened  on  October 
23,  1 89 1.  A  woman,  the  wife  of  a  small  merchant 
belono^inor  to  that  division  of  the  "  circular"  class 
ordered  to  leave  by  October  26,  was  so  close  to  her 
time  of  confinement  that  removal  threatened  her 
life.  Her  husband,  with  a  physician,  haunted  the 
approaches  to  the  Governor-General's  office  for 
two  days,  before  they  could  find  any  one  in.  At 
last  they  managed  to  secure  an  interview  with 
Istomin,  The  physician  explained  to  him  that 
they  asked  for  a  fortnight's  respite  for  the  woman 


240  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

simply  because  if  she  started  now  upon  a  railway 
journey  it  was  practically  inevitable  that  a  cata- 
strophe would  occur  on  the  road. 

Istomin  replied  that  there  could  be  no  respite 
and  that  the  woman  must  go  at  once.  He  added  : 
"  There  is  no  reason  why  you  should  not  take  a 
separate  compartment  for  her  on  the  train  and  let 
a  midwife  travel  with  her." 

And  that  was  what  was  done ! 

Another  narrative,  dealing  with  people  much 
better  known  and  illustrating  in  a  broader  way  the 
whole  heartless  business  of  crushing  and  ruining  a 
family,  has  for  its  central  figure  Mrs.  Mandelstamm, 
a  venerable  lady  of  refinement  and  culture,  the 
mother  of  the  well-known  Dr.  Mandelstamm  of 
Kazan.  Upon  the  death  of  her  husband,  in  1874, 
she  went  to  Moscow  to  live.  Her  elder  children 
were  already  domiciled  there,  and  the  younger 
ones  were  now  given  the  advantage  of  the  best 
educational  facilities  afforded  by  the  Holy  City. 
In  the  commercial  disasters  following  the  war 
Mrs.   Mandelstamm's  property  became   involved, 

and    her   oldest   daughter,    Mrs.   W ,   now   a 

middle-aged  woman  with  four  children,  was  com- 
pelled to  work  as  a  saleswoman  in  a  Magasin  to 
help  support  the  family.  This  did  not  prevent 
their  household  continuing  to  enjoy  the  respect  of 
the  entire  community,  and  the  fact  that  Dr. 
Mandelstamm  of  Kazan  is  a  baptised  Jew,  and  a 
man  of  high  professional  and  popular  position,  was 
looked  upon  as  guaranteeing  them  immunity  from 


THE    FLIGHT    FROM    MOSCOW  241 

the  persecution.  Suddenly,  under  the  "circular" 
decree,  the  aofed  -widow  received  warnino;  to  leave 
Moscow  within  four  weeks.  Her  son  went  to  the 
palace,  and  personally  saw  Istomin,  with  whom  he 
was  acquainted.  Istomin  promised  readily  to 
submit  the  case  to  the  Governor-General,  volun- 
teering the  assurance  that  His  Higrhness  was  not 
such  a  barbarian  as  to  refuse  this  good  old  lady 
the  privilege  of  living  and  dying  among  her 
children  in  Moscow.  A  few  days  later  Dr. 
Mandelstamm  called  again  upon  Istomin,  and 
that  official  without  a  word  returned  to  him  the 
petition  he  had  submitted.  On  it  was  written, 
in  Serofe's  own  hand,  the  incredible  order  that 
instead  of  the  four  weeks  granted  her  by  the 
police,  the  venerable  woman  must  leave  Moscow 
within  twenty-four  hours ! 

During  this  brief  space  of  time,  the  decrepit  old 
widow  made  all  her  arrangements  for  leaving  her 
home  for  ever,  and  started  on  her  journey.  But 
first  she  witnessed  the  hurried  marriage  of  her 
third  daughter,  Rosetta,  to  a  young  fellow-student 
at  the  University,  named  Weinburg.  This  mar- 
riage was  to  have  been  deferred  for  a  year  or 
two — until  both  bride  and  groom  had  taken 
their  degrees.  It  had  now  to  be  precipitated  in 
this  summary  fashion,  in  order  to  prevent  the 
expulsion  of  Rosetta  as  well. 

This  visitation  of  barbaric  wrath  upon  an  un- 
offending  family  was   not   even   now   exhausted. 

The  eldest  daughter,  Mrs.  W ,  was  ordered  to 

Q 


242  -    THE   NEW   EXODUS 

leave  Moscow  b}'  April  26,  1892,  a  decree  which 
she  by  a  few  weeks  forestalled.  After  years  of 
self-denying  labour  to  support  and  educate  her 
children — labour  which  has  broken  down  her 
health  and  induced  a  pulmonary  affection  which 
can  give  her  only  a  few  more  years  of  life — she  is 
driven  from  her  native  land,  a  homeless  and  help- 
less outcast,  with  three  daughters,  the  eldest  of 
whom  was  studying  the  piano  at  the  Conservatory, 
the  youngest  of  whom  is  a  child  of  ten.  Her  only 
son  came  of  age  this  year,  and  has  been  drafted 
into  the  Russian  army — to  be  expelled  and  follow 
the  others  into  exile  when  he  has  served  his  term 
with  the  colours. 

This  truly  mediaeval  catalogue  of  vicious  bar- 
barities is  only  one,  and  by  no  means  the  most 
cruel,  of  the  bitter  many  which  have  been  burned 
into  the  memories  of  the  Moscow  Jews.  After 
July  of  this  year  1892,  there  will  remain  scarcely 
a  shadow  of  that  Hebrew  community  which 
eighteen  months  ago  numbered  nearly  30,000 
souls.  The  rabbis,  the  beadles,  the  members  of 
the  choir,  the  elders,  have  all  been  driven  out. 
Even  the  sexton  of  the  Jewish  burying-ground 
has  been  sent  away.  No  Jewish  butchers  remain. 
From  the  beginning,  special  care  was  taken  to 
trace  and  expel  all  Jewesses  who  were  employed 
in  Hebrew  households  as  cooks,  a  decision  having 
been  obtained  that  they  were  not  artisans,  and 
some  one  else  having  decided,  or  being  said  to  have 
decided,  that  they  were  not  domestic  servants. 


I 


THE    FLIGHT    l-RO.M    MOSCOW  243 

The  expulsions  of  January  26,  1892,  upon 
which  date  expired  the  time  limit  of  the  poorer 
class  of  "circular  Jews,"  and  of  those  artisans 
who  had  "  six  years'  residence  and  four  children, 
or  employed  four  workmen,"  may  be  said  to  have 
reached  a  climax  in  horror  which  no  one  had 
dreamed  possible.  To  the  brutality  of  man  was 
added  now  the  awful  savagery  of  the  elements. 
The  week  was  the  coldest  which  even  that  arctic 
region  remembered  for  years.  On  the  day  itself, 
the  thermometer  actually  marked  34  degrees  below 
zero,  Fahrenheit.  The  gas  could  not  burn  in  the 
street-lamps  in  such  a  temperature ;  great  bon- 
fires were  kept  blazing  in  the  squares  and  at 
corners,  at  public  expense,  to  prevent  citizens 
compelled  to  be  out  of  doors  from  freezing  as  they 
walked ;  the  schools  were  closed,  and  garrison 
drills  suspended.  On  the  22nd,  orders  were 
issued  that  the  forwardino^  of  criminal  convicts 
from  the  central  prison  should  be  stopped  for  the 
time  being,  owing  to  the  terrible  cold. 

It  was  at  such  a  time  as  this  that  nearly  2000 
Jews  were  forced  to  take  a  last  look  at  what  had 
been  their  homes,  and  start  off  on  their  pilgrimage 
of  exile.  The  weather  was  too  bad  for  convicts 
to  travel  in  ;  it  was  all  right  for  people  whose 
offence  was  having  been  born  in  Israel.  Not 
until  two  days  after  the  date  of  the  expulsion — 
that  is  to  say,  until  practically  all  the  victims  had 
departed — was  the  clemency  which  had  from  the 
first   been    extended    to    thieves   and    murderers 


244  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

Stretched  out  to  cover  Hebrews  as  well.  A  police 
order  was  issued  on  January  28,  deferring  *'the 
further  expulsion  of  Jews  from  Moscow  until 
February  i,  in  view  of  the  extreme  frosts." 
Mme.  Novikoff  might  characteristically  reproduce 
this  decree  as  an  example  of  the  humane  spirit 
inspiring  the  Russian  Government.  When  it  was 
pointed  out  to  the  officials  that  the  expulsions 
had  already  taken  place,  they  shrugged  their 
shoulders  and  laughed. 

One  shudders  at  that  laugh.  That  four  little 
[children  were  frozen  to  death  in  the  streets,  on 
their  way  to  the  railway  station,  is  a  mere  incident 
of  the  hideous  story.  An  educated  young  Jewish 
woman  who  was  in  Moscow  that  day,  and  has 
since  joined  her  brother  in  London,  grows  faint 
and  hysterical  and  blinded  with  tears  when,  even 
at  this  distance  and  lapse  of  time,  she  essays  to 
tell  the  narrative  of  what  she  saw.  I  do  not 
wonder  at  it.  There  were  scores  of  wretched 
children,  clad  only  in  linen  smocks  or  tattered 
summer  clothing,  whose  hands  and  feet  were 
frozen.  The  crowded  platform,  from  early  morn- 
ing till  midnight,  offered  at  every  step  such  scenes 
of  heart-breaking  misery  of  mind  and  wild  physical 
anguish  as  belong  to  the  battle-field  alone. 

With  this  final  picture  haunting  the  memory, 
let  us  leave  inhuman  Holy  Moscow. 


I 


CHAPTER   XIV 

ST.  PETERSBURG,   ODESSA,  AND   KIEFF 

St.  Petersburg  is  less  characteristically  Russian 
than  any  other  city  within  the  empire.  It  is  a 
kind  of  fakir  in  architecture — a  cosmopolitan 
charlatan  borrowing  styles  and  tricks  of  expressioi 
from  numerous  civilised  sources,  yet  revealing 
its  innate  barbarism  throus^h  them  all.  I  hav^ 
not  seen  it  in  the  winter,  when  it  is  said  to 
present  a  brilliant  and  attractive  individuality  ^ 
entirely  its  own.  Its  summer  aspect  is  one  of 
profound  melancholy,  with  vast  sprawling  empty 
streets,  with  huge  gloomy  deserted  edifices,  with 
waterways  confined  between  silent  quays,  and 
bearing  on  their  cold  surface  no  signs  of  trade 
activity  or  social  animation. 

The  far-famed  St.  Isaac's  Cathedral  suggests 
in  turn  St.  Paul's  in  London  and  the  Capitol  at 
Washington  ;  the  Kazan  Cathedral  is  a  poor 
imitation  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome ;  the  great 
building  devoted  to  the  General  Staff  is  copied 
from  Versailles  ;  the  palaces  are  plagiarisms  from 
Venice,  Amsterdam,  and  Berlin  ;  even  the  shop- 
windows  follow  at  a  respectful  distance  after 
Parisian  models. 


lA^y  THE  NEW    EXODUS 

In  this  city,  built  to  order  over  a  swamp  by 
/a  Czar's  caprice,  and  ever  since  its  creation  the 
centre  and  focus  of  the  efforts  of  an  aHen  imperial 
line  to  Germanise  Russia,  what  may  be  called 
municipal  feeling  scarcely  exists.  __XL-is  dominated 
by  the  congregated  bureaucracy  of  the  empire 
even  more  wholly  than  Washington  is  ruled  by 
Congress.  '  Its  population  comes  and  goes,  with- 
out routinor  itself  or  forming  enduringf  associations 
— like  that  of  the  capital  on  the  Potomac.  The 
signs  on  its  principal  and  fashionable  business 
streets  exhibit  German  names,  French  names, 
Dutch,  Swedish,  Finnish,  and  English  names,  with 
only  here  and  there  a  Russian  appellation. 

The  residents  of  St.  Petersburg  know  and  care 
so  little  about  such  civic  facts  and  conditions  as 
lie  outside  their  own  special  ambitions  or  points 
of  social  contact,  that  it  has  been  extremely 
difficult  to  collect  statistics  concerning  the  Jews 
of  the  capital.  None  of  the  people  whom  I  met 
and  talked  with  there  had  any  definite  notions 
on  the  subject.  Most  of  them  were  under  the 
impression  that,  with  a  few  favoured  exceptions, 
the  whole  Hebrew  community  had  been  cleared 
out  years  ago.  This  idea  was  borne  out  by  my 
failure,  during  nearly  a  fortnight  in  St.  Petersburg 
— on  the  streets,  in  the  bazaars,  at  the  garden 
theatres  in  the  suburbs — to  see  more  than  one  or 
two  distinctively  Jewish  faces. 

I  learned  afterwards  that  there  were  still  a  good 
many  Israelites  in  St.   Petersburg,  but  that  they 


ST.   PETERSBURG,    ODESSA,    AND    KIEFF      247 

went  about  as  little  as  possible,  and  particularly 
avoided  places  of  public  resort.  One  evening  at 
the  Arcadia  Gardens  I  called  my  companion's 
attention  to  a  young  man  walking  with  a  girl 
who  seemed  to  be  his  sister,  and  asked  if  they 
did  not  look  like  Jews.  "  The  girl  may  be,"  was 
the  reply.  "If  she  is  a  registered  prostitute 
nobody  will  object  to  her  as  a  Jewess.  But  the 
man  would  only  dare  come  here  in  case  he  had 
been  baptised  :  otherwise  he  would  certainly  be 
insulted  and  compelled  to  go  !  " 

The  best  clue  to  the  figures  of  the  persecution 
in  St.  Petersburg  is  furnished  by  the  mortuary 
statistics  of  the  city.  In  1882  there  were  480 
Jewish  deaths  recorded  ;  in  1890  the  number  had 
fallen  to  200.  Assuming  the  death-rate  to  be  25 
in  the  thousand,  this  would  give  us  a  Hebrew 
population  of  19,200  in  1882  and  of  only  8000  in 
1890.  That  is  to  say,  in  nine  years  1 1,200  people 
had  Bed  or  been  expelled  from  the  city  of  the 
imperial  residence. 

The  figures  for  the  following  year,  or  a  portion 
of  it,  are  more  exact.  I  discover  that  the  St. 
Petersburg  Jewish  Committee  from  June  13  to 
October  22,  1891,  assisted  202  artisan  families  of 
569  souls  to  leave  the  city.  This  does  not  include 
any  of  the  refugees  who  were  able  to  pay  their 
own  expenses.  It  also  leaves  out  all  the  young 
men,  no  matter  how  indigent.  The  committee 
did  not  dare  help  them  to  get  away  for  fear  of 
incurring  the  charge   of  facilitating  their  escape 


248  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

from  the  conscription.  From  two  independent 
sources  the  estimate  is  made  that  the  whole 
number  of  expulsions  from  May  to  November 
was  close  upon  2000.  They  have  been  going  on 
at  this  rate  ever  since. 

All  this  has  been  done  without  the  warrant  of 
any  edict  or  decree  of  expulsion.  The  Chief  of 
Police,  General  Groesser,  who  frankly  declared  that 
he  was  above  the  law,  acted  entirely  on  his  own 
initiative.  If  any  one  tried  to  appeal  to  a  higher 
authority,  he  was  simply  put  out  within  twenty- 
four  hours.  The  most  common  pretext  for  these 
expulsions — where  any  was  vouchsafed  at  all — 
was  that  the  victims  did  not  work  at  their  trades 
on  Saturdays.  But,  as  has  been  explained  here- 
tofore, no  explanation  or  authority  is  necessary. 
General  Grcesser,  so  long  as  he  did  not  incur  the 
wrath  of  the  Czar  or  offend  the  Czar's  master, 
the  dread  Pobiedonostseff,  freely  did  anything 
under  the  sun  in  St.  Petersburg  that  he  pleased. 

When  the  savage  expulsion  decree  fell  upon 
Moscow  and  the  towns  in  the  Province  of 
Moscow  at  Passover  time  in  April  1891,  Groesser 
filled  the  eastern  and  southern  railway  stations 
of  St.  Petersburg  with  police  and  Cossacks  to 
intercept  any  of  the  persecuted  race  who  might 
try  to  escape  in  that  direction  from  their  doom  of 
returnino-  to  the  Pale.  Scores  of  travellers  were 
arrested  on  arrival  upon  the  vaguest  and  most 
shadowy  suspicion  of  being  Jews,  and  in  not  a 
few  instances  were  detained  in  custody  for  days, 


ST.    PETERSBURG,   ODESSA,   AND    KIEFF      249 

though  their  passports  showed  the  suspicion  to  be 
groundless.  It  is  said  that  some  of  these  people, 
out  of  sheer  official  perversity,  were  afterwards 
marched  off  by  ctape. 

In  Russia  no  man  can  exist  without  a  passport. 
When  the  police  take  this  passport  away  he  is  no 
longer  alive  in  any  civic  sense.  Every  privilege 
appertaining  to  his  human  estate  is  suspended. 
He  can  appeal  to  no  one.  If  it  is  the  whim  of 
some  choleric  barbarian  in  epaulets  to  send  him 
to  Siberia,  off  he  must  go,  with  no  more  chance 
of  escape  or  redress  than  a  captured  fish  flapping 
in  the  sportsman's  basket.  Even  if  he  be  a 
stranger,  with  the  passport  of  a  foreign  Govern- 
ment, he  is  equally  powerless.  Only  last  Novem- 
ber Mr.  Joseph  Pennell  had  his  passport  taken 
from  him  at  Berdichef,  and  was  refused  permis4 
sion  to  either  telegraph  or  write  to  the  British 
Consulate  at  Kieff  or  the  American  Legation  at 
St.  Petersburg.  It  eventually  pleased  the  pro- 
vincial authorities  to  transport  him  to  the  western 
frontier.  If  they  had  decided  to  send  him  east- 
ward instead,  he  would  simply  have  disappeared 
mto  Siberia  without  a  sion. 

The  expulsions  in  St.  Petersburg,  which  since 
1882  had  never  wholly  ceased,  began  again  with 
renewed  virulence  in  May  1891.  The  most 
notable  victim  was  the  young  poet  Frug,  who 
■came  from  the  south  to  the  capital  in  1883. 
Although  he  had  been  refused  admission  to  the 
university,   his  literary   attainments   won   prompt 


250  THE  NEW  EXODUS 

recognition,  and  his  writings,  alike  in  verse  and 
prose,  were  sought  after  by  the  most  important 
Russian  journals,  including  some  that  were  avow- 
edly anti-Semitic.  Despite  this  fact,  he  would 
not  have  been  allowed  to  live  in  St,  Petersburg 
or  anywhere  else  in  Russia  outside  the  Pale,  had 
not  the  device  been  adopted  of  enrolling  him  as  a 
footman  in  the  household  of  Mr.  Warschoffsky,  a 
Jewish  lawyer  having  the  right  to  employ  one 
co-religionist  as  a  servant.  Only  in  November 
last  even  this  humiliating  privilege  was  arbitrarily 
withdrawn,  and  Frug  was  ordered  to  leave  the 
city  within  twenty-four  hours,  on  penalty  of  being 
sent  by  ctape.  There  was  no  pretence  that  his. 
writings  were  objectionable,  or  that  he  had  com- 
mitted any  offence.      It  was  only  that   he  was  a 

^an  a  country  be  regarded  as  civilised,  or  as  fit 
to  pold  friendly  relations  with  civilised  peoples,  of 
which  such  a  story  as  that  can  be  truthfully  told  ? 

It  would  serve  no  purpose  to  quote  the  details, 
of  the  St.  Petersburg  expulsions.  Mr.  I.  Rab- 
binovitch  was  sent  in  chains  to  Dilnaburg  for 
no  offence  save  that  of  being  a  Jew.  Moses 
Mordonchai  Feinberg,  a  gold  and  silver  smith, 
whose  right  of  residence  dated  from  1871,  and 
Eidel  Solomon  Gissing,  whose  permit  extended 
back  to  1868,  were  both  reduced  almost  to  beg- 
gary by  summary  and  wholly  unjustifiable  orders 
to  leave.  So  the  list  micrht  be  extended  inde- 
finitely. 


I 


ST.    PETERSBURCl,    ODESSA,    AND    KIEFF      251 

When,  in  the  summer  of  1891,  the  Times 
printed  the  statement  that  a  synagogue  in  St. 
Petersburg  had  been  closed  by  the  Government, 
the  Russian  press  at  once  denied  its  truth,  and 
the  denial  was  accepted.  The  facts  are  that  two 
synagogues,  not  one,  were  shut  up  :  they  were  in 
the  province  of  St.  Petersburg,  not  the  city  of 
that  name.  One  was  at  Narva,  a  manufacturing 
town,  where  Jews  work  in  the  cloth  and  ilax 
mills  and  the  chemical  works.  The  other  was  at 
Kolpino,  where  they  are  employed  in  the  great 
naval  factory,  founded  by  Peter  the  Great,  where 
engines  are  now  made  and  armour-plate  is  rolled. 
These  Jews  are  said  to  be  without  exception 
veterans  whose  service  of  twenty-five  years  under 
Nicholas  and  Alexander  II  entitled  them  to  live 
anywhere  in  Russia.  It  was  not  thought  expe- 
dient to  abrogate  this  privilege.  The  Govern- 
ment instead  closed  their  synagogues.  It  is  a 
penal  offence  to  publicly  read  Jewish  prayers 
save  in  a  licensed  synagogue.  Thus  these  old 
soldiers,  against  whom  no  thought  of  offence  or 
disloyalty  was  charged,  were  estopped  from  wor- 
shipping God  in  the  manner  of  their  fathers. 

These  wanton  things  were  not  done  in  some 
remote  and  inaccessible  corner  of  the  empire,  by 
officials  beyond  the  control  of  the  Central  Govern- 
ment. They  happened  within  the  Province  of 
St.  Petersburg,  under  the  direct  authority  of  its 
Governor,  the  Czar's  friend,  Count  Toll. 

The  childlike  foolishness  of  it  all  is,  I  am  aware, 


2S2  THE   NEW  EXODUS 

well-nigh  incredible.  The  outside  world  can  com- 
prehend neither  its  gratuitous  malignity  nor  its 
spasmodic  want  of  system.  Why  suppress  the 
synagogues  of  Narva  and  Kolpino,  and  leave 
others  unmolested  ?  Why  pack  one  man  off  in 
chains,  without  a  word  of  warning,  and  let  another 
remain  months  after  his  time  has  expired  ?  Why 
expel  the  poet  within  twenty-four  hours,  and  take 
no  steps  whatever  against  the  brothel-keeper  ? 
Why  toil  to  fill  volume  after  volume  with  a  con- 
flicting jumble  of  statutes,  and  then  act  without 
any  warrant  of  law  at  all  ?  There  is  no  answer. 
One  might  as  well  ask  why  the  same  horse  which 
shies  at  a  piece  of  paper  on  the  road  will  charge  a 
field  battery  without  a  qualm. 

One  of  the  least  explicable  of  the  late  General 
Groesser's  acts  was  his  issuing  an  order  forbiddinor 
Jews  to  apprentice  their  children  to  artisans,  in 
order  that  they  may  learn  a  trade.  What  on 
earth  the  reason  may  be  for  this  astonishing 
regulation,  its  results  have  been  painful  in  the 
extreme.  Not  even  the  veterans  of  Nicholas 
have  been  exempted  from  this  whimsical  order. 
One  old  soldier,  Minin  by  name,  some  years  ago 
apprenticed  his  son  to  an  umbrella-maker.  The 
boy  served  his  time,  obtained  his  certificate  as  a 
skilled  workman,  and  began  work  for  his  master 
as  a  journeyman  for  the  period  stipulated  in  his 
indentures,  living  in  his  house  meanwhile.  Under 
this  new  edict  the  police  declared  this  contract  of 
his  illegal  (though  it  bore  Grcesser's  signature)  and 


I 


ST.    PETERSBURG,    ODESSA,    AND    KIEFF      253 

ordered  the  young  man  to  quit  work,  IMinin 
petitioned  Groesser  and  was  rebuffed  ;  then  he 
appealed  to  the  Senate,  whereupon  Groesser  gave 
both  him  and  his  son  twenty-four  hours  in  which 
to  leave  St.  Petersburg. 

Another  favourite  device  for  harrying  the 
unhappy  people,  now  highly  valued  in  large 
Russian  towns,  is  ascribed  to  General  Groesser's 
ingenuity.  By  police  orders,  every  Jewish  mer- 
chant must  hang  out  a  sign,  giving  not  the 
Hebrew  names  of  himself  and  his  father,  but  those 
names  as  it  pleases  the  Russian  wit  to  contempt- 
uously parody  them.  Thus  a  man  whose  name 
is  Samuel  son  of  Abraham,  must  on  his  sign 
describe  himself  as  Schmoulke  son  of  Abramke — 
names  which  fill  the  Russian  Jew  with  loathing. 
This  serves  numerous  purposes  :  Jewish  shops 
can  be  systematically  boycotted  ;  in  case  of  a  riot 
the  Christian  mob  can  see  exactly  where  to  work 
its  violence ;  and  the  owners  are  compelled  by 
their  own  advertisements  to  make  themselves 
ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  the  community. 

Jewish  merchants  of  the  Tirst  Guild,  residing 
elsewhere  in  Russia,  cannot  visit  the  capital  now 
without  liability  to  insult  and  expulsion.  Though 
they  have  as  much  legal  right  in  St,  Petersburg 
as  the  Czar  himself,  the  police  pay  domiciliary  visits 
to  their  hotels  and  order  them  to  get  out  of  the 
city  immediately. 

It  is  reported  that  on  a  recent  occasion,  when 
Russia  was  casting  about  for  a  new  loan,  a  great 


254 


THE   NEW  EXODUS 


foreign  banking-house  was  requested  to  send  a 
confidential  agent  to  St.  Petersburg  to  consult  with 
the  Minister  of  Finance.  The  agent  who  was 
sent  was  a  Hebrew,  a  financier  of  high  standing 
and  social  position.  Although  it  was  known  that 
he  came  on  Government  business,  the  police  went 
to  his  hotel  and  so  affronted  and  browbeat  him 
that  he  turned  about  and  went  home  again, 
and  negotiations  for  the  loan  ceased  then  and 
there. 

Tn^;^n<-c  r^f  fVijt^  cpj-j  iHustrate  afresh  the  fallacy 
<i>f  the  popular  notion  that  the  Russians  are  an 
c  stute  people,  i  hey  are  siiiiiri!  in  a  siUa'lk^vage 
\ /ayritfec-fl  ^initfr  -^•^pjil  op  a  Soudanese  shejk. 
It  is  a  cunning  which  falls  so  wide  of  our  own 
standards  uf^^Lki^ci'nQOP  that — wc — jitstmrtrvsly' 
'i^xaggerate  it  An  (^pibOde  111  Mi.  i'ciuicTl's 
BerdTdicf  LApi>.riences  last  November  affords  an 
excellent  example  of  what  I  mean.  An  official 
representative  of  the  Governor-General,  sent  down 
from  Kieff'to  discover  what  this  suspicious  stranger 
was  doing,  went  with  him  to  a  local  photographer's 
to  have  developed  all  the  film-negatives  Mr. 
Penjiellls  kndnk  had  made.  There  were  street 
scenes,  market  groups,  itinerant  pedlers,  pictures 
of  tumble-down  old  rookeries,  and  the  like.  The 
official  looked  gravely  through  them,  one  by  one, 
over  the  lamp  in  the  dark  room,  doubtless  deeply 
puzzled  that  any  sane  man  should  so  waste  time 
and  chemicals.  When  the  inspection  was  finished, 
only  one  negative  had  been  laid  aside  for  confis- 


\^ 


ST.    PETERSBURG,    ODESSA,    AND    KIEFF      255 

cation.  By  merest  chance  this  one  had  in  it  the 
upper  part  of  a  telegraph  pole.  The  aide-de-camp 
detected  in  this  a  subtle  attempt  to  obtain  inform- 
ation about  Russia's  military  telegraph  system,  and 
had  it  destroyed  on  the  spot. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  official  policy  of 
suppression  and  exasperation  which  I  have  out- 
lined above  should  have  well-nigh  destroyed 
business  in  St.  Petersburg.  Competent  men  of 
affairs,  who  are  concerned  in  the  Russian  trade, 
assure  me  that  the  existing  commercial  collapse  is 
even  more  due  to  the  demoralisation  created  by  the 
Jewish  expulsions  than  to  the  bad  harvest.  In  the 
first  week  of  October  1891  alone,  ten  big  Ortho- 
dox Christian  business  houses  in  Moscow  failed, 
their  aggregate  liabilities  being  nearly  ^1,000,000. 
To  this  inaugural  crash  succeeded  a  winter  of 
unparalleled  financial  stringency,  punctuated  by 
bankruptcy,  and  the  spring  of  the  present  year,  so 
far  from  promising  improvement,  brought  the  fall 
of  the  great  Giinzburg  banking-house,  attended  by 
a  whole  train  of  minor  failures.  Just  as  the  Czar 
had  the  Jewish  flour  mills  closed  on  account  of  the 
crucifixion,  so  he  is  understood  to  have  personally 
interposed  to  prevent  official  aid  being  extended 
to  save  the  Giinzburgs  from  disaster.  It  would 
be  strange  indeed  if  commercial  confidence  throve 
in  such  an  atmosphere. 

An  even  worse  state  of  aftairs  exists  at  Odessa, 
where  the  stagnation  which  I  saw  last  summer 
was  during  the  autumn  turned  into  a  destructive 


256  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

panic  by  the  ukases  blocking  all  cereal  exporta- 
tion. Of  that  great  congregation  of  prosperous 
merchants  who  have  built  up  the  Black  Sea 
trade  and  developed  far  above  all  other  portions 
of  the  empire  the  grain  belts  of  the  Dnieper  and 
the  Dniester,  hardly  any  can  hope  to  emerge 
unscathed,  and  the  majority  are  confronted  by 
absolute  ruin. 

/On  the  surface  of  things  this  is  ascribable,  of 
QDurse,  to  the  terrible  failure  of  the  crops  and  to 
;he  ukases  mentioned  above.  In  reality  one  of 
the  chief  factors  in  Odessa's  present  tribulation 
s  the  enforced  idleness  or  absence  of  the  small 
Jewish  middlemen,  who  formerly  went  through 
the  grain  country  buying  the  crops  as  they  stood 
and  advancinor  the  monev  for  the  harvesting 
expenses.  Last  year,  from  fear  of  confiscation 
or  expulsion  before  they  could  sell  again,  and 
also  from  their  inability  to  get  credit  at  the  banks, 
they  made  no  purchases.  As  a  result,  in  whole 
rich  districts  the  crops  were  never  cut  at  all,  but 
rotted  where  they  stood. 

/The    Jewish    exodus    from  Odessa  has  lacked 

the  sensational   features  we  have  seen  displayed 

at  Moscow  and   St.   Petersburg — for  the  reason 

that    the    Hebrew    community    there    was    much 

stronger   and    richer  than   in  any  other   Russian 

city,    and    could   purchase   civil    treatment   from 

he  police  and  provincial  authorities — but  in  point 

f  numbers  it  must  nearly  if  not  quite  equal  that 

om  both  the  others  put  together.     It  could  hardly 


J 


I 


ST.  PETERSBURG,  ODESSA,  AND  KIEFF        257 

be  otherwise,  when  in  the  year  1S90  the  city  con- 
tained 106,000  of  them.  \ 

A  large  proportion  of  the  Israehtes  in  Odessa^ — tj 
at  the  beginning  of  1891  were  foreigners,  who  had/     r 
come  from  Austria,  Roumania,  Germany,  TurkeyJ    / 
and  elsewhere.      Among  them  were  some  of  th^    [ 
leading  citizens  of  the  town — lawyers,  physicians 
with  rich,  fashionable  practice,  dentists,  merchants, 
ship-owners,  and  manufacturers.      They  have  all 
had  to  Q-Q.  A/ 

Although  Odessa  is  within  the  Pale,  that  fact 
has  made  very  little  difference  with  the  unhappy 
Jews  of  Russian  birth  domiciled  there.  Odessa 
is  a  new  city.  Its  amazing  growth  and  splendid 
commercial  position  during  the  past  twenty  years 
have  been  largely  the  work  of  the  Hebrews  from 
other  parts  of  Russia  who  moved  thither  in  the 
sixties  and  seventies,  under  Alexander  IPs  rela- 
tively enlightened  rule.  There  Judaism  held  up 
its  head  as  it  never  dared  do  in  Moscow  or  St. 
Petersburg.  There  it  maintained  handsome 
synagogues,  had  its  open  share  in  municipal 
management,  and  stood  on  an  admitted  footing 
with  other  sections  of  the  community.  No  Jew 
in  Odessa  hesitated  to  avow  his  race  or  talk  about 
it.  There  were  next  to  no  converts  to  Christianity 
there. 

Even  in  August  of  1891,  when  I  visited  Odessa, 
the  situation  had  gravely  altered.  The  banks 
were  avoiding  transactions  with  Jewish  merchants 
as  much    as   possible,    and    in    a   country  where 


258  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

everything  is  arranged  upon  a  credit  system  that 
in  itself  was  ruinous.  The  forced  reaHsations  of 
those  who  had  had  to  fly,  and  the  general  refusal 
of  debtors  to  pay  what  they  owed  to  those  who 
remained,  were  completing  the  spoliation  of  the 
Hebrew  community. 

I  saw  them  by  scores,  sittincr  about  in  the  parks, 
gardens,  and  public  places  of  Odessa,  or  wander- 
ing aimlessly  along  the  beautiful  parade  which, 
perched  high  in  the  air,  overlooks  the  blue  Euxine. 
Their  inability  to  look  as  if  they  were  accustomed 
to  leisure  was  pathetic.  "  Compulsory  idleness  " 
was  written  on  every  lineament  of  their  thin, 
eager,  olive-hued  faces.  You  could  read  it  in  the 
sidelong  glances  they  bent  upon  strangers  passing 
by  and  in  the  restless  manner  in  which  they  sat 
on  the  benches,  as  if  ready  to  spring  up  and  run 
on  the  instant. 

Six  months  before  they  had  been  active,  capable, 
self-reliant  citizens,  busily  carrying  on  their  share 
in  the  commerce  of  a  bustling  and  prosperous 
port,  maintaining  comfortable  homes,  educating 
their  children,  and  bearing  themselves  with  a 
decent  pride.  They  had  been  powerful  enough, 
when  the  Governor-General  issued  an  order 
authorising  the  police  to  punish  Jews  who  failed 
to  touch  their  caps  to  all  officials,  to  compel  the 
revocation  of  the  order  by  simply  refusing  to 
enter  any  place  of  public  resort  so  long  as  it  was 
in  force.  Now  the  blight  of  barbarism  had 
passed    over   them    and   turned    them    into    the 


ST.   PETERSBURG,  ODESSA,  AND  KIEFF       259 

distrauo:ht,    frightened,    and    wretched    beinsfs     I 
saw. 

"  Holy"  Kieff  to-day  probably  exceeds  Odessa 
in  population,  although  it  plays  so  insignificant 
a  part  in  the  thoughts  of  the  outside  world.  In 
appearance  it  is  as  uniquely  striking  as  "Holy" 
Moscow,  but  in  character  they  are  widely  sepa- 
rated. Kieff  and  the  district  to  which  it  gives 
its  name  really  belonged  to  Old  Poland.  There 
is  a  large  Catholic  element  in  the  city.  Many 
ancient  families—of  the  Polish  nobility  hold  big 
estates  in  the  country  roundabout — or  did  until 
within  the  last  few  years.  For  generations  cruel 
Russian  laws  have  existed  for  the  purpose  of 
breaking  up  these  estates  and  preventing  the 
children  of  the  Polish  owners  from  inheritinor 
them,  but  until  recently  the  officials  were  bribed 
to  let  them  remain  a  dead  letter.  With  the 
rise  to  power  of  Pobiedonostseff  this  parleying 
with  the  heretics  came  to  an  end.  A  little 
later  Count  Alexis  Ignatieff,  a  younger  brother  of 
"The  Infamous,"  was  sent  to  Kieff  as  Governor- 
General. 

This  junior  Ignatieff  is  a  fat,  rough,  burly 
soldier  of  fifty.  He  is  worth  remembering,  be- 
cause many  people  in  Russian  official  circles 
regard  him  as  the  coming  man.  Eight  years 
ago  he  was  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Cossack  Guard. 
When  the  circonscription  iiiilitairc  of  Irkutsk  was 
formed  in  1884,  he  was  put  at  the  head  of  it. 
His  Siberian   record   is  one  of  the  most  terrible 


26o  THE   NEW  EXODUS 

which  even  that  home  of  horrors  presents.  He 
had  men  flogged  to  death  and  female  prisoners 
tortured  until  even  Russian  journals  protested. 
Then  he  was  promoted  to  the  rich  and  powerful 
berth  of  Kieff. 

With  the  coming  of  this  hard  barbarian  a  new 
impulse  was  given  to  the  spoliation  of  the  Polish 
proprietors,  the  coercion  of  the  university  students 
(an  exceptionally  restive  lot  in  Kieff),  and  the 
persecution  of  the  Catholics,  the  Molokani,  the 
Stundists,  and  other  "  schismatics  "  of  the  South. 

It  may  be  imagined  that  he  has  not  spared  the 
Jews. 

No  figures  whatever  are  obtainable  on  the 
subject  of  his  expulsions.  _JXh£.  province  of  Kieff, 
as  distinct  from  the  city,  is  inside  the  Pale,  and 
last  year  was  estimated  to  contain  some  400,00a 
Hebrews.  On  the  theory  of  ratio  heretofore 
adopted,  this  would  mean  that  60,000  people  had 
been  chased  from  their  homes  in  the  villages  into 
the  towns.  There  are  no  means  of  testing  this 
estimate.  But  to  see  the  present  state  of  Berdi- 
chef,  the  principal  town  in  the  province,  is  to  feel 
ready  to  credit  any  statement  on  this  head,  no 
matter  how  wild. 

This  Berdichef  was  in  1890  supposed  to  con- 
tain some  60,000  inhabitants,  two-thirds  Jews. 
It  was  then  an  overcrowded  place,  made  up  for 
the  most  part  of  old  and  insanitary  rookeries,  in 
which  were  huddled  one  of  the  poorest  popula- 
tions   to    be   found    anywhere    in     Europe.     By 


ST.  PETERSBURG,  ODESSA,  AND  KIEFF        261 

August,  1 89 1,  it  was  said  that  fully  20,000  addi- 
tional Hebrews  had  been  driven  in  from  the  sur- 
rounding country.  The  spectacle  of  their  poverty 
and  squalor  was  something  too  sickening  for 
words.  The  whole  place,  with  its  filthy  streets, 
its  open  sewers,  its  reeking  half-cellars  under  the 
overhanging  balconies,  and  its  swarming  throngs 
of  unwashed,  unkempt  wretches  packed  into  the 
narrow  thoroughfares  on  the  look-out  for  food, 
made  a  picture  scarcely  human.  Mr.  Pennell  tells 
me  that  when  he  was  there  in  November  he  was 
assured  that,  instead  of  the  60,000  Jews  of 
August,  there  were  then  in  Berdichef  no  less  than 
90,000. 

It  is  understood  that  there  is  nothing  else  in 
the  Pale  quite  so  awful  as  the  condition  of 
Berdichef.  Certainly  the  fugitives  who  find  their 
way  out  of  Russia  from  this  point  touch  the 
lowest  depth  of  destitution  and  enfeebled  misery 
which  the  committees  at  Hamburg  and  elsewhere 
have  to  encounter.  But  there  are  over  a  hundred 
towns  in  that  hell  called  the  Pale  where  the 
same  causes  operate  which  have  made  Berdichef 
such  an  unspeakable  charnel-house,  and  in  each 
one  the  Russian  police  have  done  their  brutal  best 
to  reproduce  the  conditions  of  Berdichef. 

The  "jioly  "  City  of  Kieff  has  always  occupied 
a  position  in  J^^it^sTarTTnw  apart  from  the  province 
of  that  name.  Th^_se2aration  dates  back  into 
the  mists  of  the  Mid  die..  Ages.  Kief  is  invested 
with  unique  importance  in  the  Russian  Orthodox 


262  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

mind.  Hcrg^t  was  that  the  pagan  descendants 
of  Rurik  ^Erst-accepted  Christianity;  here  St, 
Vladimir,  seveuiii  in  descent  from  Rurik,  built  the 
first  Christian  church  in  989  ;  and  here  he  lies 
buried  in  the  Dessiatinnaya  church,  which  occu- 
pies the  site  of  his  ancient  edifice.  When  Poland 
and  the  Czar  Alexis  in  1657  divided  the  Ukraine 
between  them  the  city  of  Kieff  was  excepted 
from  the  provision  which  gave  the  right  bank  of 
the  Dnieper  to  the  Poles,  j  Thus  the  "Jerusalem 
of  Russia,"  as  it  is  called,  came  under  the 
dominion^qf  the  Czars  136  years  before  the 
province  lying  outside  its  walls.  This  was  not 
gathered  in  by  the  Muscovite  octopus  till  the 
second  partrtioririzdthat  of  1793. 

Amonor  the  distinctions  m  law  still  maintained 
between  the  city  and  the  province  is  this,  that  the 
latter  is  in  the  Pale  and  the  former  is  not.  /jFor 
generations  no  Jews  were  permitted  to  liveJn  the 
Holy  City.  The  statute  is  still  on  the  books  for- 
bidding any  but  merchants  of  the  First  Guild  to 
reside  in  the  town,  and  limiting  them  to  the 
Libedsky  and  Plossky  quarters.  Side  by  side 
with  this  are  other  laws  referring  to  other  classes 
of  Jews  who  live  in  the  town.  Prince  Demidoff 
San  Donate,  in  his  admirable  work,  deals  at 
length  with  the  grotesque  paradox  involved  in 
these  contradictory  enactments.  Of  course,  what 
they  meant,  though  he  did  not  like  to  say  so,  was 
that  the  local  officials  had  the  Jews  of  Kieff  at 
their  mercy,  and  could  blackmail  them  at  will. 


I 


ST.  PETERSBURG,  ODESSA,  AXl)  KIEl'E        265 

This  is  what  is  still  going  on  in  the  "HolyY 
City.  Judging  by  a  study  of  the  laws,  I  had  exj 
pected  to  find  no  Jews  at  all  in  Kieff,  To  my 
surprise,  they  were  vastly  more  in  evidence  there 
than  in  Moscow.  The  outburst  of  anti-Semitic 
fanaticism  which  had  smitten  Moscow,  St,  Peters- 
burg, and  Odessa  hip  and  thigh,  which  had  made 
the  fair  at  Nijni  Novgorod  a  blank  failure,  and 
established  a  reign  of  terror  in  every  manufacturing 
and  trade  centre  of  the  empire,  was  being  used  in 
"  Holy"  Kieff  with  strictly  commercial  prudence.  ^ 
They  were  not  so  silly  in  this  sacred  city  as  to 
slay  the  goose  of  the  golden  eggs,  or  even  chase 
it  away  prematurely.  A  sagacious  system  of 
squeezing,  with  just  enough  brutality  to  make  the 
pressure  acute,  commended  itself  instead  to  their 
judgment. 

A  favourite  trick  there,  at  the  time  of  my  visit, 
was  to  serve  well-to-do  Hebrew  merchants  with 
notice  that  their  cooks  or  their  coachmen,  not 
being  artisans,  must  leave  the  city.  If  the 
merchant  cared  to  go  to  the  necessary  expense, 
he  could  convince  the  police  authorities  that  his 
special  servants  were  undoubtedly  artisans.  If 
he  concluded,  on  the  other  hand,  to  let  them  go, 
he  presently  received  a  notification  that  his  own 
position  in  the  city  seemed  irregular.  That  meant 
business.  Knowing  perfectly  well  that  they  had 
laws  enousfh,  in  assorted  varieties,  to  make  anv- 
thing  under  the  sun  irregular,  he  walked  up  to 
the  Captain's  office  and  settled. 


264  THE   NEW  EXODUS 

To  this  day  we  get  from  time  to  time  news  of 
a  fresh  raid  upon  unauthorised  Jews  in  Kieff.  In 
December,  for  example,  there  was  the  story  that 
150  pubhc-houses  kept  by  Jews  had  been  closed 
in  that  city.  Most  probably  it  was  a  lie  made  out 
of  whole  cloth  ;  if  it  was  not,  then  it  showed  the 
continued  existence  in  Kieff  of  a  great  class  of 
Jews  who,  by  the  law,  should  have  been  expelled 
long  before,  and  who  had  at  last  come  to  the 
end  of  their  power  to  pay  blackmail. 

It  is  an  ingenious  part  of  the  scheme  at  Kieff 
to  every  now  and  again  make  some  savage  and 
sporadic  onslaught  upon  a  group  of  Jews,  solely 
with  a  view  to  leading  the  St.  Petersburg  autho- 
rities to  believe  that  the  expulsions  are  being 
earnestly  and  thoroughly  carried  on.  Quite  of  this 
character  was  the  order  of  the  Governor-General 
last  summer  summarily  expelling  all  the  singers, 
musicians,  and  actors  of  Jewish  blood  in  the 
various  theatres  and  cafes-chantants  of  the  city. 
It  happened  that  this  involved  the  closing  of 
every  such  place  of  entertainment  in  Kief.  On 
the  very  night  of  the  order  "Robert  le  Diable" 
had  to  be  abandoned  at  the  Opera-house  and 
the  audience  sent  away,  because  the  conductor 
of  the  orchestra  was  the  only  non- Hebrew  con- 
nected with  the  performance.  Naturally,  an  in- 
cident of  this^sort  attracted  universal  attention. 
Tidings  of  it  flew  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  pleased 
Pobiedonostseff  and  the  Czar.  This  served  the 
purpose  of  diverting  attention   from  those   other 


ST.  PETERSBURG,  ODESSA,  AND  KIEFF        265 

Jews  who  had  not  been  sent  out  of  Kleff,  and 
who  were  paying  through  the  nose  for  their 
immunity. 

So  this  long  chronicle  of  the  persecution  comes 
to  an  end.  From  the  mass  of  notes  still  untouched 
concerning  Nijni  Novgorod,  Kaluga,  Simbirsk, 
Tula,  Pavlovo,  Vorsina,  and  numerous  other 
places,  examples  of  barbaric  cruelty  and  heart- 
breaking misery  could  be  cited  to  an  almost  in- 
definite extent.  They  would  but  repeat  the 
story  already  told.  Nor  is  it  needful  to  refer  to 
the  savage  anti-Jewish  riots  at  Staradoub,  Balta, 
and  other  points  throughout  the  south  during 
the  past  winter ;  they  are  still  a  part  of  the 
current  news,  and  in  truth  relate  more  to  the 
general  famine-stricken  and  turbulent  condition  of 
the  empire  than  to  the  special  Semitic  question. 

In  the  interest  of  a  complete  narrative  of  the 
expulsions,  it  is  necessary  to  now  leave  the  land 
of  oppression  and  to  observe  the  phenomena  of 
the  exodus  presented  at  and  across  the  frontier. 


CHAPTER   XV 


ISRAEL    IN    EXILE 

The  indignant  interest  with  which  Christendom 
has  followed  Russia's  career  of  internal  persecution 
and  inhumanity  is,  at  its  best,  of  a  sentimental 
character.  However  shocked  the  nations  may 
[have  been,  none  of  them  has  allowed  the  feeling 
to  affect  in  any  tangible  way  its  friendly  relations 
with  the  Government  of  the  Czar.  But  the 
moment  public  gaze  is  shifted  from  the  doings 
inside  the  Empire  to  the  great  streams  of  fugitives 
pouring  across  the  border,  humanitarian  sympathy 
^takes  on  sternly  practical  limitations.     We  have 

Iready  witnessed  the  beginnings  of  what  threatens 

be  a  policy  of  complete  exclusion  on  the  part 

the    German    Empire.   /  Both     Fncrlar^^    ^nd 

merica  display  a  growing  nervousness  over  the 

^ospectj^f^a  sustained  Semitic  mvasion,  anct  are 
n^i>4LQl_y  applymg  such  immigrarion  reo-ulaiions  as 
th^y  possess  with  more  and  more  severity,  but 
are-<]^ite  in  tne  mood  to  further  stren 
|.tutory  macnmery 


n  their 
1  her^  IS  ncTother 


nation  north^oT  the  euualor.  blP-nHJ;>t4r-ii  liii  liikfi  i 
nt'il  ^11  fHJ^iy-.prpr1-irn11v  this  same  hoF^'^^  pj-tlfnd^ 
It  would  be  misleading,  however,  to  ignore  the 


ISRAEL    IN    EXILE  267 

gradations  in  which  this  self-protective  spirit  is 
evoked  and  manifested.  The^  United  States,  for 
exaifrpfer-bave  room  enough  lor  all  new-c?Tm€rs 
who  j:rTTHiiise__to  be  good  citizens  and  ii^^iul 
members   of  the    community.      Their  inter£st>is 


concentratcd^iiponjiie  mquirv  whether  the  Russo- 
JewistL4:efijo^s  come  within  this  categ^ory.      I n  a 
modified  sense,  this  is  true  ofEiiglcfTTd^s^vell, 
although  her  reliance  is  placed  upon   the  volun\ 
teer   vigilance    of  the    London  Jewish   Board   of\ 
Guardians    and    Russo-Jewish   Committee  rather! 
than    upon    the    lax    and    meagre    safeguards    o(J 
British  immigration  laws.  / 

But  -jhe  two  great  Empires  governed_Jxaa"i 
Berlin  aittk^^/^nna  ask  a  very  dlfterent  question. 
They  are  alreaByTivnrrrnwdrd  ■arrd'QverPurclengf' 


There  is  not  work  enough  "now  wittTm  their 
borders  to  keep  in  even  relative  comfort  their 
own  people.  The  utmost  skill  of  their  rulers  is 
taxed  to  prevent  vast  war  budgets  from  bankrupt- 
ing the  nation,  and  to  repress  the  tendency  of 
ill-paid  or  idle  millions  to  revolt  against  their  lot. 
To  either  of  these  great  States  the  influx  of  any 
mass  of  poor  people,  seeking  food  and  employ- 
ment, would  be  a  grave  calamitv-r-and  this  would 
be  as  true  of  Gentiles  as  oijews.  "^ 

The  problem  with  which  this  whole  Russo- 
Jewish  question  cohfroiTts  the  German  and  Austrian 
Empires  is  one  which,  In  its  ultimate  working  out, 
may  profoundly  affect  the  liistory  of  Europe. 

We  have  seen   that   Russia's  action  is  twofold. 


268  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

She  drives  all  the  foreign-born  Jews  out  of  her 
dominions.     She  roughly  sweeps  up  all  her  native- 
born  Jews  and  dumps  them   into  the  hundred  or 
more  towns  of  the  Pale.     That  she  should  expel 
the  aliens  is,  from  her  point  of  view,  intelligible. 
But  what  earthly  reason   can    there  be    for  this 
strange  policy  of  herding  all  her  own  Jews  in  the 
towns  of  these  fifteen  western  provinces,  where, 
in   incredible  squalor  and    helpless    misery,   they 
must  eat  each  other  or  force  their  escape  ?     What 
conceivable    commercial,    social,  or    political    end 
can  be  served  by  this  course  ?     Is  it  merely  the 
fantastic    stupidity    of   barbarism  ?      Or    is    there 
deep  method  beneath  the  madness  } 
I.     Both  in  Austria  and  in  Germany  this  massing 
Wof  the  unhappy  Jews  in  the  towns  of  the  Pale  is 
I  suspected  to  be  a  Avar  measure  of  a  unique  and 
I  terrible  character.     When  at  last  the  great  con- 
»  flict  comes,  it  is  believed  to  be  Russia's  scheme 
to  drive  westward  before  her  armies   this   whole 


Jewish  population,  making  of  it  a  moving  chevaiix- 
de-frise  of  flesh  and  blood,  which  the  hosts  of  the 
TiiEl£_^lliarice  must  cut  through  and  dispose  of 
before  they  can  strike  a  blow  at  the  advancing 
enemy. 

Even  if  this  hideous  device  proves  impracti- 
cable, and  the  first  shock  of  combat  is  on  Russian 
soil,  the  conditions  will  not  be  much  altered.  The 
Jews,  congregated  in  the  towns  along  the  whole 
frontier,  will  not  less  effectively  serve  as  a  barrier 
between  the  Russians  and  the  invader. 


ISRAEL   IN    EXILE  269 

It  is  enough,  however,  to  have  suggested  this 
phase  of  the  compHcated  subject.  If  there  were 
no  other  reasons,  it  would  sufficiently  explain  both 
the  eagerness  with  which  the  authorities  and  the 
local  Jewish  communities  of  the  German  and 
Austrian  border  stations  concert  to  pass  all  the 
refugees  on  as  swiftly  as  possible  to  the  west,  and 
the  sudden  interest  which  the  Prussian  military 
authorities  have  taken  in  sharpening  their  wat< 
upon  the  eastern  frontier  line. 

The  exodus  has  had  six  principal  outlets.  Ol 
two  of  these — the  departures  by  vessels  from  thel 
Baltic  ports,  and  from  Odessa  to  the  far  south] 
via  Constantinople — little  need  be  said.  The 
former  was  never  important.  The  latter  hi 
ceased  to  be  so  since  Turkey  was  won  over  by 
Russia  and  France,  and  induced  to  close  her 
frontier  gates.  /There  was  a  time  when  the 
solution  of  this  greal  pjpblem  seemed  to  lie  in 
the  direction  of  Syria  and  Egypt,  but  the  hope- 
less impracticability  of  dealing  with  the  Turk, 
and  the  indisposition  of  the  Jews  themselves  to 
go  back  into  their  worn-out  Oriental  cocoon, 
combined  to  dispel  this  idea.  Of  the  four  land 
routes,  by  far  the  most  used  is  that  which, 
traversing  Northern  Russia  and  Old  Poland  by 
Dunaburg  and  Wilna,  enters  East  Prussia  at 
Eydtkuhnen.  The  central  section  of  the  Pale 
and  the  district  along  the  line  from  Moscow  to 
Brest-Litowski  sends  its  refugees  through  Warsaw 
to   cross   the    frontier   of  the  Vistula  at  Thorn. 


2  70  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

The  southern  Pale  and  the  whole  section  beyond 
Kieff  and  Odessa  is  drained  primarily  by  the 
railway  which  crosses  the  Austrian  frontier  at 
Podvolochesk,  and  to  a  lesser  degree  by  the  line 

/which  enters  Roumania  at  Ungheni. 

With  the  partial  exception  of  those  travelling 
by  this  last-mentioned  route,  the  fugitives  all 
make  their  way  toward  Hamburg. 

V  One  of  the  unfortunate  consequences  of  this 
eagerness  on  the  frontier,  of  which  mention  has 
been  made,  to  at  all  hazards  keep  the  exodus 
moving,  is  that  very  little  inquiry  is  made  there 
as  to  the  fitness  of  the  people  for  emigration. 
They  are  sent  on  to  Berlin  and  Hamburg,  where 
the  local  committees  must  bear  the  responsibility 
of  detaining  and  sending  back  the  worthless  ones, 
and  of  deciding  what  the  others  are  good  for  and 
where  they  are  to  go. 

The  scenes  at  the  frontier  stations  are  no  less 
touching  and  significant  than  those  of  the  original 
embarkation.  I  have  told  how  the  exiles  were 
packed  like  sprats  in  the  third-class  cars,  with 
their  wooden  seats  and  fetid  atmosphere.  By 
the  time  they  have  reached  the  frontier — a  journey 
of  from  twenty  to  sixty  hours  it  may  be — weari- 
ness, scant  food  and  sleep,  and  the  sense  of  friend- 
less desolation  have  induced  an  air  of  half- 
stupefied  dejection.  They  sit  in  silence,  gazing 
at  nothing,  with  lack-lustre  eyes  which  seem  to 
say  again,  "Sufferance  is  the  badge  of  all  our 
tribe." 


ISRAEL  IN   EXILE  271 

Mechanically,  too,  they  obey  the  train  officials 
who  at  the  Russian  terminus  order  them  out  of 
the  cars.  The  men  drag  out  the  big  hempen 
bags  and  boxes  which  they  have  had  with  them, 
and  cluster  about  the  baggage  vans  to  watch  for 
the  appearance  of  their  other  chattels.  The 
women  and  children  huddle  together  on  the 
platform,  looking  with  furtive  fright  upon  the 
strange  new  scene.  At  last  all  are  passed  through 
the  station  building  and  emerge  at  the  other  side 
upon  another  platform,  where  an  empty  train  is 
drawn  up.  On  these  carriages  are  painted  Ger- 
man words  ;  the  trainmen  wear  a  novel  uniform 
and  have  their  trousers  outside  their  boot-legs. 

Then  a  curious  thing  happens.  There  are 
Russian  soldiers,  with  a  non-commissioned  officer, 
stationed  at  every  carriage  door.  Each  male 
Jew  must  now  show  his  passport  bearing  the 
police  stamp  of  permission  to  leave  the  Empire, 
and  explicitly  stating  the  size  and  personnel  of 
his  family.  He  has  had  to  spend  money,  and 
sometimes  weeks  of  time,  to  secure  this  permission. 
If  now  there  is  any  informality  about  it,  or  if  the 
examining  sergeant  or  gendarme  chooses  to  sus- 
pect one,  the  Jew  is  roughly  put  to  one  side, 
perhaps  to  be  detained  at  the  local  prison,  perhaps 
to  be  sent  back  to  the  hole  whence  he  was  fleeing. 
At  last  all  those  who  have  a  ris^ht  to  leave  Russia 
have  been  got  into  the  new  train.  It  starts — 
and  in  five  or  ten  minutes  has  passed  the  frontier. 
On  the  German   border  this   train  goes  unac- 


272  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

companied  by  Russian  officials.  They  used  in 
earlier  Bismarckian  days  to  cross  over  upon 
German  soil,  and  even  swagger  about  the 
German  Custom-house.  A  peremptory  stop 
has  been  put  to  that,  and  along  the  whole 
extended  Prussian  frontier  the  Muscovites  are 
now  kept  sharply  in  their  place,  and  made  to 
feel  that  they  have  neither  friends  nor  well- 
wishers  on  the  other  side  of  the  line.  But  on 
the  Austrian  and  Roumanian  frontiers  they  still 
assert,  and  are  patiently  conceded,  the  privi- 
lege of  following  the  refugees  into  non- Russian 
territory,  and  standing  by  the  while  their  bag- 
gage is  opened  and  examined  by  the  Customs 
officials. 

A  day  and  a  night  elapse  before  the  slow  train 
reaches  Berlin  :  still  another  day  and  night  are 
consumed  in  the  journey  to  Hamburg.  This  will 
be  the  first  German  city  they  have  seen,  for  they 
are  not  allowed  to  enter  Berlin,  but  are  conveyed 
around  the  outskirts  of  the  capital  by  the  Ring- 
bahn  to  Ruhleben,  and  thence,  after  an  hour's 
inspection  and  rest,  sent  westward. 

The  Jewish  committee  at  Berlin,  formed  in 
June  1891  to  receive  and  forward  these  exiles, 
has  performed  a  humane  and  arduous  task. 
Under  its  direction  have  been  the  various  frontier 
committees — or  Sichtungskomitees  * — who  are  sup- 
posed to  winnow  the  whole  mass  as  it  emerges 
from  Russia,  send  back  the  undeserving,  tabulate 

*  See  Appendix  C. 


ISRAEL   IN    EXILE-  273 

the  remainder,  and  furnish  Berlin  and  Hamburg 
with  the  necessary  information.  I  say  "  sup- 
posed," because  in  practice  this  labour  has  been 
left  to  Hamburg.  At  the  frontier  and  at  Berlin 
the  principal  work  has  been  in  furnishing  food 
and  medicine,  providing  tickets  for  the  penniless 
and  arranging  the  transportation  so  that  the  re- 
sources of  Hamburg  may  not  be  overtaxed  at 
any  one  time.  At  Ruhleben  some  members  of 
the  committee  are  present  whenever  one  of  these 
Jewish  refugee  trains  arrives.  Every  emigrant  is 
given  a  cup  of  sweetened  tea  and  a  roll  of  /cosher 
bread  upon  coming  out  of  the  carriage — the 
children  getting  milk  instead  of  tea.  On  their 
departure — generally  an  hour  or  so  later — each 
is  given  a  bowl  of  pea-soup  and  more  bread.  A 
physician  is  also  constantly  in  attendance.  Much, 
the  same  benevolence  has  previously  been  ex- 
tended by  the  Sichtungskomitd  at  Eydtkuhnen. 
These  frontier  committees  also  do  succeed  in 
detecting  and  stopping  a  large  proportion  of  the 
Jews  from  Poland  proper  who  try  to  smuggle 
themselves  through  as  sufferers  from  the  Pale 
beyond. 

Pathetic  stories  were  told  me  in  Berlin  of  the 
terror  and  ignorance  of  the  earlier  refugees,  who 
came  shortly  after  the  fierce  Passover  persecu- 
tions. The  committee  had  arranged  with  the 
railroad  authorities  for  the  use  of  a  disused  tunnel 
in  which  to  feed  and  examine  the  exiles  durinor 
their    halt    at     Ruhleben..      The     panic-stricken 


274  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

wretches  could  with  difficulty  be  brought  to  com- 
prehend that  at  last  they  were  among  friends. 
They  were  afraid  to  eat  the  food  set  before  them 
for  fear  it  was  not  kosher ;  they  fought  against 
giving  up  their  tickets,  to  be  exchanged  for 
others ;  especially  were  they  terrified  at  being 
compelled  to  enter  the  tunnel,  which  seemed  to 
them  like  another  Russian  prison.  Some  were 
found  who,  at  sight  of  this,  suspected  that  they 
had  been  brought  to  Siberia  instead  of  Germany. 
One  woman,  rather  than  go  into  the  tunnel, 
snatched  up  her  two  babes,  and,  screaming  as  she 
ran,  leaped  upon  the  track  before  an  advancing 
train,  and  was  rescued  at  great  risk  and  by  a 
veritable  hair's-breadth.  The  people  who  come 
now  are  more  tranquil,  but  still  difficult  to  manage 
often  enough. 
^  But  Hamburg  is  the  real  place  in  which  to 
study  the  exodus.  If  I  should  seem  to  speak 
with  an  excess  of  warmth  upon  this  subject,  let 
me  record  in  advance  the  feeling  that  I  have 
never  in  my  life  witnessed  more  genuine,  unos- 
tentatious, and  intelligent  philanthropy  than  I  saw 
at  work  here,  and  have  never  come  into  contact 
with  better,  kindlier,  more  truly  admirable  men 
than  the  Jews  of  the  Hamburg  committee. 

IsraelTTas  always  been  an  integral  influential 
element  in  this  fine  old  freie  Stadt.  In  Ham- 
burg there  has  never  been  the  vaguest  dream  of  a 
Judenhetze.  When  the  anti-Semitic  craze  was  at 
its  height  in  Berlin,  Dr.   Stoecker  came  to  Ham- 


ISRAEL   IN    EXILE  275 

burg  to  lecture.  His  audience  pelted  him  off  the 
platform,  and  he  had  to  leave  the  town  that  same 
night.  The  Jews  in  the  Republic  of  Hamburg 
number  20,000,  or  only  4  per  cent,  of  the  popula- 
tion. They  constitute  10  per  cent,  of  the  mem- 
bership of  the  Burgerschaft  or  Legislature,  and 
furnish  20  per  cent,  of  the  graduates  in  the 
Gymnasia  and  other  higher  schools. 

The  old  saying  that  "every  country  has  the 
sort  of  Jews  it  deserves"  passes  a  just  eulogium 
upon  Hamburg.  In  this  proud,  strong,  broad- 
minded,  free  city,  where  there  has  so  long  beenl 
one  law  and  one  code  of  courtesy  for  all  races  and' 
creeds,  the  Hebrew  community  is  a  source  of 
honour  and  of  strength.  It  is  more  than  ordinarily 
prosperous,  devout  without  bigotry,  and  public- 
spirited  in  the  highest  degree. 

The  Hamburg  committee  embraces  some 
scores  of  the  foremost  Hebrews  in  finance, 
commerce,  and  the  professions.  There  are  no 
honorary  members,  no  drones.  They  all  give 
personal  attention  to  the  work,  and  the  division 
of  this  labour  amonor-  the  various  sub-committees 
forms  a  piece  of  mechanism  as  exact  and  efficient 
as  a  Prussian  regiment. 

One  of  the  most  significant  features  of  their 
work  is  the  cordial  assistance  it  has  from  the 
police  and  Stadt  authorities.  The  two  co-operate 
as  if  they  were  parts  of  a  single  body.  Several 
of  the  buildings,  including  the  men's  bathhouse, 
used  by  the  committee   are  the  property  of  the 


276  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

city,  and  with  the  exception  of  one  for  which  rent 
is  paid,  have  been  lent  free  of  charge. 

From  the  moment  when  the  refugees  land  in 
one  of  the  four  Eastern  stations  of  Hamburg,  till 
the  anchor  is  weighed  on  the  vessel  which  is  to 
bear  them  to  a  new  continent,  they  are  under  the 
charge  of  the  committee,  and,  if  needful,  are  com- 
fortably maintained  at  its  expense. 

After  their  reception  at  the  station,  the  tickets 
given  them  at  the  frontier  are  examined,  or  new 
ones  oriven  them,  and  records  made  of  all  the 
names,  and  other  particulars.  They  are  then 
allotted  to  certain  lodging-houses,  with  which 
contracts  have  been  made.  A  complete  bath  is 
obligatory,  and  during  this  their  clothes  are 
disinfected.  Such  as  need  new  garments — a 
very  large  majority — are  supplied  from  the  com- 
mittee's warehouse.  Besides  the  food  at  the 
lodging-houses,  a  generous  midday  meal  is 
furnished  at  the  Jewish  soup  kitchen.  Small 
SicJitiuigskoniites  sit  nightly,  and  pass  upon 
every  individual  case  of  the  thousands  presented. 
Such  help  as  is  necessary  is  extended,  and  the 
applicant  is  sent  to  the  point  Avhere  his  trade  or 
previous  work  seems  to  give  him  the  best  chance 
of  success.  Generally  from  ten  days  to  a  fort- 
night elapse  before  he  departs  for  his  new  home. 
Even  on  the  voyage  he  is  surrounded  by  the  care 
of  the  Hamburof  committee.  There  are  stores  of 
kosher  meat  and  bread  on  the  ship,  and  a  Jewish 
kitchen,  a  Schattmer,  and  a  doctor. 


ISRAEL   IN    EXILE  377 

A  volume  would  scarcely  exhaust  the  curious 
sights  which  I  came  upon  during  my  visits  to 
Hamburg,  and  with  which  the  hospitable  town 
has  been  familiar  since  the  spring  of  1891. 

The  bath  for  the  men — a  public  establishment 
on  Bauerstrasse  lent  by  the  city — presented  most 
whimsical  spectacles.  The  men  all  received 
tickets  for  four  baths — the  first  compulsory. 
One  of  the  committee  confessed  with  a  rueful 
smile  that  the  remaining  three  were  not  invari- 
ably used.  It  was  evident  enough  that  many  of 
the  poor  devils  had  never  been  immersed  in  water 
before ;  none  of  them  had  the  remotest  idea  of 
swimming.  They  hung  back  as  long  as  they 
could,  quaked  their  way  in  gingerly,  and  emerged 
from  the  tepid  water  gasping  and  shivering  from 
friofht.  I  was  told  that  the  women  both  needed 
and  dreaded  this  ordeal  even  more  than  the 
men. 

A  whole  floor  of  a  bisf  old  building-  off  the 
Alter  Steinweof  is  devoted  to  the  collection  of 
clothing — cast-off  or  shop-worn — with  which  the 
rags  from  Russia  are  replaced.  Here  were  great 
heaps  of  coats  and  trousers,  still  in  their  original 
shelf  creases,  contributed  from  remnants  of  stock 
by  Jewish  merchants,  and  other  piles  of  garments 
collected  from  houses  all  over  North  Germany 
and  Denmark.  There  were  barrels  full  of  hats, 
huge  mounds  of  boots,  some  new,  mostly  old,  and 
tables  covered  with  underclothing,  shirts,  collars,. 
und  neckties.      i\Iany  of  these  were  elaborate  and 


278  THE    NEW   EXODUS 

expensive  productions,  which  had  simply  gone 
out  of  fashion,  so  when  a  Jewish  mender  of 
umbrellas  turns  up  at  New  York  in  a  fancifully 
embroidered  dress  shirt  he  need  not  necessarily 
be  suspected  of  bad  faith.  The  committee-men 
who  were  with  me  had  great  laughter  over  a 
dress-coat  which  some  kindly  soul  had  con- 
tributed. I  sus'gested  that  it  might  be  useful 
for  a  waiter.  But  it  seems  there  are  no  Jewish 
waiters. 

A  curtained  screen  across  the  big  room  shut 
off  the  part  devoted  to  clothing  for  women.  Here 
the  pegs  were  laden  with  frocks  of  all  sizes  and 
colours,  with  flaring  decorations  and  wildly  gay 
patterns — relics  of  departed  German  fashions.  I 
was  curious  to  know  whether,  if  one  of  the 
applicants  fastened  her  heart  upon  some  parti- 
cular gown,  she  got  it,  or  was  put  off  with 
something  else.  "Oh,  yes,"  was  the  reply; 
"  we  eive  her  what  she  wants.  Even  Jewish 
women,  you  know,  must  be  humoured  on  the 
dress  question." 

The  mute  record  of  many  tears  and  saddened 
homes  lay  on  a  table  in  the  corner — a  heap  of 
dehcately  made  infants'  clothes  which  had  never 
been  worn.  I  saw  two  peasant  women  from 
some  unspeakable  slum  or  other  in  the  Pale  look 
at  these  wee  garments  of  lace  and  ribbons,  and 
then  look  sadly  at  each  other.  They  understood 
the  language  of  the  little  unused  robes. 


ISRAEL   IN    EXILE  279 

Most  curious  and  droll  were  the  metamorphoses 
effected  in  these  clothing  rooms.  Grave,  gaunt- 
eyed,  bearded  old  men  came  out  with  jaunty 
white  straw  hats  and  the  roundabout  jackets  of 
the  dandies  of  i  S84.  A  small  boy,  whose  parents 
were  the  veiy  lowliest  I  saw^  in  face  and  de- 
meanour and  dress,  got  a  costly  sailor  suit,  much 
better  than  the  German  Emperor's  children  wear. 
One  thick-nosed,  bold-faced  young  man,  who  had 
been  clothed  afresh,  came  to  us  with  a  complaint 
that  his  hat  did  not  correspond  in  quality  with  the 
rest  of  his  outfit.  It  was  rather  a  questionable 
hat,  but  his  manner  displeased  my  friends.  "  Do 
you  want  to  pass,  then,  for  a  Baron  in  America  ? " 
one  of  them  asked  him. 

The  public  dinner  at  12.30  was  spread  in  a 
room  capable  of  seating  about  130.  In  the  three 
weeks  preceding  my  first  visit,  in  July,  5000 
meals  had  been  served  here.  There  were  a  half- 
dozen  members  of  the  committee  here  each  day, 
superintending  the  affair.  When  the  thick  pea- 
broth  had  been  handed  about,  two  of  these  com- 
mitteemen stepped  forward  with  bowls  and 
tasted  it.  Then,  as  by  a  signal,  the  hungry 
people  hastened  to  eat.  They  had  been  waiting 
for  this  proof  that  the  soup  was  prepared  in  kosher 
fashion. 

The  virulent  orthodoxy  of  these  refugees,  if  I 
may  so  call  it  without  offence,  considerably  com- 
plicates the  task  of  looking  after  them   in   their 


28o  THE   NEW   EXODUS 

journey  across  Europe.  They  would  rather  not 
eat  at  all  than  bite  into  any  unsanctified  morsel. 
The  very  dishes  in  this  soup  kitchen  which  the 
committee  had  started  for  their  benefit,  had  to  be 
new.  The  Schaumer — a  venerable,  long-bearded 
dignitary  of  the  synagogue,  something  between 
a  beadle  and  a  sexton,  who  presided  in  a  black 
skull-cap  over  the  arrangements — had  to  give 
them  repeated  assurances  on  this  point.  His 
presence  was  a  formal  guarantee  that  everything 
had  been  cooked  according  to  the  Jewish  ritual. 

The  bread  was  all  in  small  rolls,  each  of  which 
had  pasted  upon  the  crust  a  little  paper  kosher 
label.  In  an  adjoining  room  were  barrels  of 
peas,  of  flour,  and  of  sugar.  I  noted  with  curiosity 
that  these  were  all  of  the  most  expensive  variety. 
The  prices  in  the  books  showed  this,  and  it  was 
true  of  the  other  articles  of  food  as  well.  Besides 
the  soup  and  bread,  each  person  had  one-third  of 
a  pound  of  meat,  with  potatoes  and  greens. 

There  was  no  drink  but  water,  of  which  they 
drank  tumblerfuls  in  quite  the  American  way.  I 
commented  upon  this,  saying  that  the  costliness 
of  every  other  item  forbade  the  theory  that  this 
was  for  economy's  sake,  but,  pointing  out  that 
English  paupers,  or,  for  that  matter,  French  and 
German  too,  would  get  something  besides  water 
to  drink,  even  if  their  food  was  of  the  cheapest 
and  worst.  "  These  people  would  not  drink  any- 
thing but  water,"  was  the  reply.     "  We  tried  some 


ISRAET.    IN    EXILE  281 

of  the  older  and  more  feeble  of  them  with  beer  at 
the  outset,  but  it  made  them  sick,  and  they  begged 
off  from  havinq-  any  more." 

In  this  cookshop  14,128  meals  were  given 
during  the  month  of  July  1891,  23,579  in  August, 
13,682  in  September,  and  5676  in  October.  The 
falling  off  is  ascribable  in  large  measure  to  the 
rigorous  religious  fast-days  of  the  early  autumn, 
which  rendered  the  Jews  unwilling  to  travel  or  in- 
dulge in  real  meals.  The  greatest  number  of  meals 
served  on  any  one  day  was  1360  on  August  4. 
The  daily  average  for  the  entire  period  from  the 
formation  of  the  committee  through  to  the  be- 
ginning of  winter  was  530.  Thus  far  in  the  year 
1892  the  average  has  been  somewhat  smaller, 
owing  to  the  partial  closing  of  the  German  frontier] 
and  the  cholera  outbreak. 

I  have  not  been  able  to  secure  exact  figures 
from  Hamburg  concerning  the  exodus.  In  round 
numbers,  about  75,000  refugees  seem  to  have 
passed  through  that  port  since  the  ist  of  June 
1 89 1.  The  committee  reports  having  entirely 
provided  for,  alike  in  food,  clothes,  transportation, 
and  some  small  start  in  life,  20,000  people.  They 
have  partially  helped  30,000  more.  Something 
like  another  25,000  have  come  to  Hamburg  and 
gone  away  without  asking  for  help  or  applying 
to  the  committee — and  very  possibly  the  number 
may  be  still  larger. 

In  the  matter  of  finance,  the  German  Central 


282  THE    NEW    EXODUS 

Committee  has  raised,  including  all  sources  of 
contribution,  something  over  ^100,000,  There 
are  objections  to  examining  in  detail  the  expen- 
diture of  this  sum,  and  it  moreover  by  no  means 
covers  the  heavy  individual  outlay,  to  which 
almost  the  entire  Hebrew  community  has  been 
subjected.  The  Hamburg  committee's  books,  for 
example,  showed  last  autumn  that  they  had  re- 
ceived ^27,000  from  the  General  Committee,  and 
had  raised  ^i  1,000  more  on  their  own  account  in 
Hamburg  in  addition.  This  fell,  however,  far 
short  of  representing  what  had  been  expended  in 
that  city  alone  upon  the  ceaseless  stream  of 
fugitives  passing  through.  Several  of  the  more 
important  local  committees  have  also  been  given 
permission  to  draw  upon  Baron  Hirsch  for  current 
expenses,  when  their  funds  from  other  sources 
were  exhausted  for  the  time  being.  Hamburg, 
for  instance,  was  last  winter  authorised  to  draw 
upon  him.,  if  needful,  to  the  extent  of  ^20,000. 

The  most  valuable  indication  of  the  extent  of 
the  new  exodus,  and  of  its  curious  fluctuations,, 
is  aftbrded  by  the  following  figures,  for  which  I 
am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  members  of  the 
Russo-Jewish  committee  at  Berlin.  They  give 
by  weeks  the  number  of  adult  Hebrew  emigrants 
received  at  Ruhleben  and  forwarded  to  Hamburg 
— the  diminution  during  October  being  due  to  the 
fast-day  observance  already  alluded  to  : 


ISRAEL    IN    EXILE 


!83 


\\  c.L  ending — 

July  lo,  1 89 1 
July  17 
July  24 
Auyubt  I 
August  8 
August  15     . 
August  22     . 
August  29     . 
September  5 
September  12 
September  19 
September  26 
October  3     . 
October  lo  . 
October  17  . 
October  24  . 
October  31  . 
Xo\ember  7 
November  14 
November  21 
November  28 
December  5 
December  12 
December  19 
December  26 


2,517 
2,796 
3,4?2 
2,675 
2,700 
1,812 

2,7CO 

2,912 
3.019 
3.690 

3j355 
2,200 
1,207 

795 
633 

749 
686 
1,526 
1,507 
1,437 
1,234 
1,075 

1,364 
1,023 
1,068 


Week  ending- 


January  2,  1S92 

943 

January  9     . 

820 

January  16  . 

695 

January  23  , 

693 

January  30  . 

741 

February  6  . 

776 

February  J3 

894 

February  20 

],OIO 

February  27 

641 

March  5 

560 

March  12      . 

602 

March  19 

798 

March  26      . 

652 

April  2 

264 

April  9 

66 

To  23  . 

42 

April  30 

48  I 

May  7  . 

754 

May  14 

1,154 

May  21 

•     J, 5^' 

To  31    . 

•     1,563 

Total,  47  weeks 

.  63,861 

These  figures  take  no  account  of  children.     Add- 

o 

ing  these,  at  the  lowest  estimate,  would  more 
than  double  the  total  oriven  above.  It  is  also 
quite  within  bounds  to  assume  that,  of  the  total 
number  of  Jews  Heeing  from  Russia,  not  more 
than  two-thirds  pass  through  Berlin.  Still  further, 
no  record  is  presented  here  of  the  considerable 
number  of  refugees  who  have  been  able  to  bear 
their  own   expenses,  and   have  not  troubled  the 


\ 


284  THE   NEW    EXODUS 

committee.  Some  authorities  estimate  this  class 
at  one-fourth  of  the  whole.  It  seems  to  me  safer 
to  call  it  one-fifth.  Upon  that  basis  we  have  then 
a  total  flight  of  approximately  205,000  souls  in 
nine  months.  By  the  lowest  estimate,  the  year 
ending  in  October  of  1892  will  have  seen  not  less 
than  225,000  human  beings"  driven  from  their 
^  homes,  and  the  land  of  thetT^ifth. 

It  does  not  fall  within  the  scheme  of  this  work 
'to  trace  the  exodus  beyond  the  converging 
point  of  Hamburg,  whence  it  radiates  again  to 
every  quarter  of  the  globe.  Years  must  elapse 
before  judgment  can  be  passed  upon  this  new 
\Israel  out  of  bondage.  The  stupendous  plan  of 
^ron  Hirsch,  evolved  by  the  wisdom  of  the 
chi^f  men  of  the  race,  and  endowed  by  his  vast 
donation,  is  not  yet  fairly  in  operation,  and  can 
at  best  benefit  but  a  fraction  of  this  great  host 
already  dispossessed  and  expatriated.  (_The  minor 
colonies  in  the  United  States,  founded  partly  from 
his  bounty,  partly  by  the  philanthropic  efforts  of 
American  Hebrews,  have  not  thus  far  progressed 
beyond  the  experimental  stage.  /The  English- 
speaking  communities  all  over  the  j^o23^accus- 
tomed  alike,  whether  in  the  huge  himian  hives 
on  the  Thames  and  the  Hudson,  or  the  more  open 
spaces  of  Australia,  the  Cape,  California  and 
Canada,  to  offer  refuge  to  the  oppressed  and 
wretched  of  whatever  race  and  tongu^^^^^^Hold  the 


ISRAEL    IN    EXILE  285 

bulk  of  this  prodigious  foreign  mass  still  undigested^ 
unassimilatedi  ' 

Thosc'wtttsi  are  jiot  prone  to  broadly  hopeful 
views  of  humanity  may  without  much  trouble  find^ 
warrant  for  both  present  discomfort  and  future 
apprehension  in  the  character  and  dimensions  of 
this  latest  invasion.  Doubtless  nothing  that  could 
be  said  here- wottUl  ease  the  one  or  allay  they 
other.  But  I  trust  that  at  least  some  service  wU 
have  been  Hnnp  by  thf  aVtpmpt  to  examine  both 
the  religious  and  the  racial  causes  underlying  this 
phenomenon  of  nineteenth-centu?)'' "hT^f)ry,  and 
ta-''5ecome  acquainted  with  the  forces  whichJ 
having^  been  employed  for  generations  to  plunderl 
narrow,  debase  and  demoralise  the  unhappy 
Russian  Jew,  expend  themselves  now  in  the  final 
■acToF  throwing  him  out,  a  penniless  and  helpless 
^waistfel,  for  others  to  take  care  of.  • 

■"THe^ study  has  in  the  nature  of  things  been  om 
of  sustained  gloom — a  picture  in  which  the  onl)^ 
lights  fall  from  the  torches  of  Cossacks  on  their^ 
midnicrht  raids,  or  from  the  sinister  candles  burninor 
in  front  of  the  modern  Torquemada's  ikons. 
story  of  a  whole  people  being  insulted,  degraded, 
and  abused  by  system,  denied  the  commonest  of 
human  rights  by  law,  and  at  last  stripped  bare, 
torn  from  their  homes  and  driven  out  of  their 
country,  could  not  well  be  made  pleasant  readihg. 
Yet,  now  that  it  has  been  told,  I  fTnd  myself 
wondering  whether  the  most  pathet"iC~aTrd  hope- 


286 


THE   NEW   EXODUS 


less  feature  is  not,  after  all,  Its  disclosure  of  what 
the  Russians"^_themselves  are  like.  The  woe- 
begone outcast  in  cap  and  caftan,  wandering  forth 
^dismayed  into  exile,"  will   take  heart  again.      His 

:hildren's  childrelT  may  shape  a  nation's  finance, 
lor  give  law  to  a  literature,  or  sway  a  Parliament. 
lAt  the  least,  they  will  be  abreast  of  their  fellows  ; 
(they  will  be  a  living  part  of  their  generation  ;  they 
n\\  be  free  rnen^JJearing   neither  famine  nor  the 

;nout. 
.TheRus8raTV>marches.jii^"€rt:tfer  way. 


APPENDICES 


Petition  presented  in  Moscow,  in  May  1891,  to  the  C/.ar  by 
Israel  Deyel,  a  corporal  in  the  Veteran  Reserve,  and  for  the 
writing  of  which  he  was  imprisoned. 

{^Traiislatcd^ 

Most  Serene,  Mighty,  and  Exalted  Sire  and  Emperoi 
Alexander  Alexandrovitch,  Autocrat  of  all  the  Russias,  Most 
gracious  Father : 

A  most  humble  petition  from  reserved  Jewish  soldiers  and 
under-officers  living  in  Moscow  : 

May  God  hear,  and  may  the  Emperor  have  mercy  ! 

We,  most  faithful  subjects,  reserved  Jewish  soldiers  and 
under-officers,  venture  to  lay  at  the  feet  of  your  Imperial 
Majesty  our  most  humble  petition  not  to  extend  to  us  the  I. aw 
of  28th  March  of  this  year,  touching  the  transportation  of 
Jewish  artisans  from  Moscow  and  the  Government  of  Moscow, 
,  and  not  to  subject  us  soldiers,  both  artisans  and  non-artisans, 
to  removal  from  these  places. 

May  it  please  your  Imperial  Majesty  to  have  your  most 
gracious  attention  drawn  to  the  fact  that  the  above-mentioned 
Law,  subjecting  thousands  of  poor  Jews  to  utter  ruin,  must 
press  with  special  harshness  and  injustice  upon  us  soldiers, 
who  have  borne  your  Imperial  Majesty's  service,  and  who,  at 
the  first  call  of  their  country,  must  advance  again  to  serve  the 
Throne  and  Fatherland.  1  )eign  to  note,  moreover,  that  such 
a  heavy  and  degrading  restriction,  depri\ing  us  of  the  right  to 


288  APPENDICES 

live  where  we  best  may  throughout  the  Empire,  does  discredit 
to  the  military  calling  and  casts  undeserved  ignominy  upon  us, 
many  of  whom,  having  had  the  honour  to  serve  in  the  Sheor 
regiments,  have  had  the  high  privilege  to  wear  the  sign  of  the 
Most  Exalted  Name  of  your  Imperial  Majesty,  and  the  names 
of  personages  of  the  Imperial  family.  Many  of  us  have  had 
the  honour  to  receive,  for  zealous  service,  your  Imperial 
"Thank  you  ! " 

The  prohibition  to  us  soldiers  to  live  freely  within  the 
borders  of  our  Fatherland,  for  which  we  bound  ourselves  by 
oath  not  to  spare  our  lives,  is  deeply  felt  by  all  Jews  and  many 
Christians  to  be  a  limitation  gravely  inconsistent  with  the 
noble  designation  of  soldier.  Military  service  opens  to  other 
persons  of  all  callings,  and  even  to  peasants,  the  possibility  of 
attaining  reputation,  rank  and  nobility.  To  us  Jews  may  it  at 
least  give  freedom  to  live  at  peace  throughout  the  Empire,  and 
may  it  lift  from  us  the  ignominy  of  compulsory  confinement 
within  the  "  Pale  of  Settlement  " — where  the  driven-together 
mass  of  Jewish  inhabitants,  separated  from  their  more  prosperous 
and  civilised  co-religionists  to  whom  the  Law  accords  privileges 
of  free  residence  and  rights  of  property,  live  in  poverty, 
ignorance  and  evil  circumstance,  the  unavoidable  results  of 
their  calamitous  condition. 

A  non-Jewish  soldier,  when  going  forth  to  fight  and  die  for 
his  Fatherland,  may  find  strength  in  the  trust  that  the  near 
ones  he  leaves  behind  will  be  watched  over  by  the  community, 
and  receive  the  paternal  care  of  the  Government,  and  the 
generous  favour  of  the  monarch.  But  a  Jewish  soldier  has  to 
face  death  for  his  Fatherland  with  the  bitter  consciousness 
that  she  has  separated  him  as  an  outcast  from  all  her  other 
children,  humiliated  him,  and  by  her  laws  has  deprived  him  of 
the  means  to  decently  exist  himself,  and  to  provide  for  the 
family  he  leaves  behind. 

He  can  only  pray  to  God  that  the  authorities  and  the 
Government  may  not  ascribe  the  offences  of  individual  Jewish 
wrongdoers  to  a  natural  evil  disposition  in  the  whole  nation  ; 
that  they  may  not  punish  all  other  Jews  indiscriminately 
because  of  these  few;  and  that  the  Judophobe  newspapers 


APPENDICES  289 

may  not,  with  malicious  design,  poison  the  minds  of  the 
,  population  against  us,  and  move  the  authorities  to  bring  us 
,   into  disfavour  with  the  Ciovernment. 

■  This  is  our  huml)le  prayer :  may  our  Eatherland  render  us 
i  justice,  and  your  Imperial  Majesty  show  his  exalted  grace,  to 
the  end  that  all  reserved  and  retired  Jewish  soldiers  and  under- 
officers,  whether  they  be  artisans  or  not,  may  graciously  be 
granted  the  right  to  live  unreservedly  throughout  the  Empire, 
and  that  those  who  have  served  in  the  ranks  during  their 
entire  term  may  be  accorded  certain  small  other  privileges, 
such  as  the  right  to  trade,  and  to  enter  the  service  of  private 
persons  and  of  public  institutions. 

Thus  may  be  fulfilled  the  saying:    "A  prayer  to  God  and 
service  to  the  Emperor  is  never  in  vain." 

Reserved  Under-Officer, 

LSR-AEL    Deyel. 
Moscow,  Alay  15,   189 1. 


B. 

The  St.  Petersburg  Official  Messenger  of  so  recent  a  date  as 
August  22,  1892,  published  by  authority  a  sweeping  denial  of 
all  the  statements  hitherto  made  "  regarding  the  alleged  cruelties 
attending  the  expulsion  of  Jews  froni  Russia.  In  particular, 
says  the  Reuter's  despatch  summarising  this  official  utterance, 
the  allegation  that  Jews  were  conveyed  in  chains  from  Moscow 
and  St.  Petersburg,  and  forced  to  travel  on  foot  to  their  des- 
tination, and  in  some  cases  even  transported  to  Siberia,  is 
declared  to  be  entirely  without  foundation.  "  In  Russia,"  the 
official  organ  adds,  "  none  but  convicts  are  put  in  chains,  and 
these  even  are  not  transported  on  foot."  The  journal  concludes 
by  emphatically  declaring  that  no  cruelties  or  acts  of  violence 
have  been  perpetrated  against  the  Jews,  and  that  all  newspaper 
statements  to  the  contrary  are  pure  inventions. 

In  the  face  of  this  circumstantial,  though  strangely  belated, 
denial,  I  reprint  the  list  of  88  Jewish  residents  of  Moscow 
who  were  marched  publicly  through  the  streets  of  that  Holy 
City  from  the  Central  Forwarding  Prison  to  the  Smolenski,  or 

T 


290 


APPENDICES 


some  other  railway  station,  by  what  is  known  as  the  ctape. 
Every  name  has  been  verified  by  personal  investigation,  and  is 
vouched  for  by  men  of  the  highest  respectability  in  Moscow. 
The  list  only  partially  covers  the  Jewish  representation  in  the 
etapes  of  a  few  months  in  the  spring  and  summer  of  1891,  and 
of  course  indicates  only  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  those  thus 


THE    SMOLHNSKl    RAILWAY    ^lAIlUN,    MOSCOW. 


outraged  throughout  the  Empire.  The  women,  who  are  dis- 
tinguished by  italics,  wore  no  chains  ;  the  men  all  bore  manacles 
similar  to  those  which  are  portrayed  on  the  cover  of  this  book. 
Not  one  of  them  was  a  "  convict,"  or  charged  with  any  crime 
save  that  of  race. 

Opposite  each  name  is  the  place  to  which  that  person  was 
sent.  Those  towns  marked  (*)  are  not  in  the  Pale.  That 
means  that  one-fourth  of  these  Jews  were  either  twenty- five- 
year  veterans  or  were  otherwise  of  the  privileged  classes  per- 
mitted since  1865  to  reside  anywhere,  and  that,  when  removed 


APPENDICES 


291 


from  Moscow  during  1891,  their  domicile  reverted  to  some 
other  place  where  Jews  are  not  allowed  to  reside,  and  from 
which  they  would  also  in  time  be  chased.  In  three  cases  the 
same  name  occurs  twice — where  people  ventured  back  to  save 
some  relic  of  their  property  or  collect  a  debt,  and  were  again 
expelled. 


12. 

13- 

14. 

15- 
16. 

i8. 

19- 
20. 


Name 
Israel  Marfis 
Itzko  Aisik 
Movscha  Perschin 
Schelma  Berlin  . 
Israel  Schabak    . 
Adam  Schinavitch 
Itzko  Reiffmann 
Elia  lEvsel)  Cirischmann 
El-Baer  Liachtiger 
Moissei  Bieloi 
Berka  Bieloi 
Meyer  Blechman 
Chain  Bcnstcin  . 
Pessia  Sverhnui 
Srul  Bcrkovitch  . 
love!  Cirischnianii 
Piness  Leif  Kat/.ev 
Bina  B!uvstfin    . 
Israil  Yonte 
Peretz  Loih  Cohan 
Mendel  Epstein  . 
Rh'ka  Krein 
Affraim  IViimanii 
Mendel  Moros 
Wiilf  Blocli 
Leibh  Eviossar   . 
Schlema  Schneeweiss 
Sara  Gutennaiin 
liicla  Sc/wrr 
David  Kantor 
Boruch  I'Viedmann 
jankel  Volkovitcher 
Raphael  Raitzyn 
Mordiich  Chessin 
Selman  Spetner  . 
Benjamin  Moskin 
Selig  Mirschovitch 
Leiba  Poliakoff . 
Isidor  Tager 
llirsch  Rabkin    . 


Sent  to 
W'ilna 
Novgorod.* 
Mstislavl. 
Mohilef. 
Kronstadt." 
Novgorondsk. 
Grodno. 
Podolsk,"^ 
Konsk. 
Toula." 
Toula.'' 
ICgorievsk.* 
Mohilef. 
Polotzk. 
Toula.  * 
Podolsk.* 
Mohilef. 
Libau. 
Orscha. 
Ooldingen. 
Vitebsk. 
Telschi. 
Pokrov.* 
Vitebsk. 
Orschmiany. 
Vitebsk. 
Vitebsk. 
Orscha. 
Wilna. 

.Serponkhov.* 
I  gum  en. 
.Moliilef. 
Diinaburg. 
M.stislavl. 
Borissov. 
Mstislavel. 
Orscha. 
Surans. 
Rieschitzy. 
Vitebsk. 


29:: 


APPENDICES 


Name 

Sent  to 

41.  Schmuel  Aronovitch Rossienny. 

42.   Leiser  Kravitsky 

.     Klin.* 

43.  Jossel  Kaplan 

.     Rossienny. 

44.  Jossel  Chenvkin 

.      Klimoffka.* 

45.   Itzko  Burdess 

.     Wilna. 

46.   Itzko  Sterch 

Tukuni. 

47.   Abraham  Bernstein     . 

Troky. 

48.   Srul  Krivoschief 

.     Bobruisk. 

49.   Faibisch  Sfhur   .... 

.     Gorky. 

50.   Berka  Drisin 

.     Dissna.  * 

51.  Bentzian  Sliokin 

.     Kieff.* 

52.  Bassia  Riabkin  . 

.     Mohilef. 

53.  Faiva  (her  grandson  of  eight) 

.     Mohilef. 

54.  Jehiel  Veitmann 

.     Bogoroditsk. 

55.  Siska  Bam  .... 

.     Polotzk. 

56.   Itzko  Rapaport  . 

.     Egorievsk.  * 

57.   Ruvim  Blankstein 

\'ologda.  ■" 

58.   Schlioma  Streltzin 

.     Mohilef. 

59.  Jankel  Itelson     .... 

Orscha. 

60.  Salmon  Goldberk 

.     Sienny. 

61.  Jankel  Fechtonbaum  . 

.     Kadin. 

62.   Itzko  Griinblatt  . 

.     Slutzk. 

63.   Sachary  Faveleff  Starinsky 

.     Slutzk. 

64.  Chaim  \\'olf  Edelstein 

Rossienny. 

65.  hivka  Krein  (twice)    . 

Telschi. 

66.  Jankel  Galkin 

.     Podolsk.* 

67.  Jossel  Revsin 

Klimovitschky 

68.   Israel  Rassner    . 

.     Mohilef 

69.   Feiga  Bercsinovd 

.     Mohilef. 

70.  Wolf  Shatzkess  . 

.     Grodno. 

71.   Elka  Toft'e 

.     Diinaburg. 

72.  Jossiff  Schmuelovitch 

.     Orel. 

73.   Movscha  Trotzky 

.     \\'ilna. 

74.  Isaac  Pschenitza 

Warsaw. 

75.   Meyer  Blechmann  (twice) 

.     Egorievsk.  * 

76.   Movscha  Meyer  Suria 

.     Vilkomir. 

77.  Evsel  (jrischmann  (twice) 

.      Podolsk.* 

78.  Indel  Movscha  Roschkin    . 

Slonim. 

79.   Itzek  Choloss 

.     Rossienny. 

80.   Mordka  Geldenreitik  . 

.     Orschmiany. 

81.   Itzek  Geiner  Chanyss 

.     Bratzlov. 

82.   Itzko  Zivkin 

.     Mstislavel. 

83.   Elia  Bernovitsch 

.     Toula.* 

84.   Herman  Zeilon  . 

.     W^arsaw. 

85.  Abraham  Blovstein     . 

.     Vologda.  * 

86.   Xenia  Riva  Drevlovska 

.     Dorrogobousch 

87.   Irael  Denell 

.     Orschmiany. 

88.   Elonor  Zeilon     . 

.     Warsaw. 

APPENDICES  293 


The  visible  head  of  the  almost  world-wide  organisation  for  the 
reception,  care,  and  distribution  of  the  Russo-Jewish  refugees,  is 
the  '''' Deutsches  Ceniral-Komitee"  at  Berlin,  which,  oddly  enough, 
has  its  correspondence  addressed  to  No.  40  Holy  Ghost  Street. 
This  central  body  comprises  some  of  the  most  eminent  Hebrew 
citizens  of  the  German  capital,  including  Justizrath  Meyer, 
Rechtsanwalt  Breslauer,  and  Karl  Emil  Franzos. 

The  more  detailed  work  throughout  Germany  is  divided  into 
three  branches  or  departments — East  Prussia,  L'pper  Silesia, 
and  the  Seaboard. 

The  Haiiptgrenzkomite  of  East  Prussia  has  its  headcjuarters 
at  Ki.inigsberg,  and  consists  of  the  chairman  of  the  five  pro- 
vincial committees  of  Insterburg,  Prostken,  INlemel,  Eydtkuhnen 
and  Tilsit,  under  the  presidency  of  Rabbi  Dr.  Bamberger,  of 
Klinigsberg.  'I'he  most  important  of  these  minor  bodies  is  the 
frontier  or  Grefizkomite  of  Konigsberg,  which  comprises  100 
men  and  women,  and  is  split  up  into  eleven  sub-committees, 
covering  "  sifting,"  lodging,  clothing,  commissariat,  transporta- 
tion, forwarding,  care  for  the  rejected,  medicine,  legal  points, 
changing  of  money,  and  advice  to  independent  travellers.  The 
five  lesser  frontier  committees  already  mentioned  represent 
some  rfo  workers,  who,  under  general  direction  from  Konigs- 
berg, receive  the  fugitives  direct  from  Russian  soil. 

The  Oberschlesische  Hilfscoinitee  in  Beuthen,  a  town  116  miles 
south-east  of  Breslau,  and  the  centre  of  a  network  of  railways 
leading  from  Southern  Poland  and  Cracow,  is  presided  over  by 
Amtsgerichtsrath  Levy,  and  has  general  supervision  over  the 
small  frontier  "sifting"  committees  at  ]\Iyslowitz,  Ratibor, 
Kattowitz,  Lublinitz  and  Laurahiitte.  In  association  with 
these,  but  organised  by  the  Israelitischen  Allianz  of  Vienna, 
are  the  ^Austrian  frontier  Sichiungs- Komitees  of  Cracow,  Pod 
volochesk,  Oswiecim,  Husiatyn  and  Czernowitz. 

Infinitely  the  most  important  of  the  "■  Koinitccs  an  den 
Hafenpldzen^   etc."  is  the  splendidly  organised    and   efiective 


\ 


294  APPENDICES 

Hanil)urg  Committee.     There  are  minor  bodies  of  the  same 
sort  at  Bremen,  Stettin  and  Posen. 

In  addition  to  these  committees  engaged  in  actual  daily  con- 
tact with  the  great  problem,  there  are  31  towns  in  Germany 
which  have  auxiliary  committees  formed  to  assist  the  Russian 
Jews. 

The  list  would  not  be  complete  withe ut  mention  of  the 
powerful  Jewish  organisations  in  Vienna,  Buda-Pesth,  Paris, 
Antwerp,  Brussels,  Amsterdam,  Copenhagen,  Rome  and  Zurich, 
which  co-operate  cordially  with  the  German  central  committee. 
London  and  New  York,  the  former  through  its  Anglo-Jewish 
Association,  the  Russo-Jewish  Committee  and  the  Committee 
of  Deputies  of  the  British  Jews,  the  latter  through  its  National 
Committee,  the  United  Hebrew  Association  and  the  United 
Hebrew  Charities,  have  the  still  more  arduous  and  trying  task 
of  receiving  this  vast  emigrant  host  after  Europe  has  sent  i< 
forth,  and  finding  a  permanent  place  for  itVinside  the  pale  of  \ 
civilisation.    \  /"^ 


INDEX 


Ac;ricui.tuk1i,  reasons  for  Jewish  ignorance  of,  25,  77 

Aksakoff,  Ivan,  5 

Alexander  I,  brokui  pledges  of,  71 

Alexander  II,  aci  ession  of,  86 

forced  into  war,  109 

disastrous  close  of  h's  reign,  116 

assassination  of,  122 

niystery  surrounding  his  death.  122 
Alexander  III  as  Czarevvitz,  no 

the  least  known  person  in  Russia,  J 33 

characteristics  of,  136 

his  father's  distrust  of,  138 

his  impatience  at  foreign  criticism,  142 

his  dislike  for  war,  143 

effect    i  the  Borki  accident  upon  him,  169 

his  ai.ower  to  a  memorial  on  the  Jews,  173 

his  rci:eption  of  a  petition  at  Moscow,  222 
Alexeieff,  I\l  ,  Mayor  of  Moscow,  20,  205 
Alexis,  Czar,  expulsion  of  Jews  by,  62 
Arakcheieff,  den.,  his  idea  of  colonics,  74 

Baptism,  inducements  towards,  29,  177 
Barristers,  limitation  of  Jewish,  183 
iJerdichef,  horrors  of,  2O1 

Cathkkink  II,  41 

inoperative  edict  of,  63 
Church,  the  Greek  Orthodox,  its  reactionary  inlluencc,  9 

pilgrimages  01  its  devotees,  9,  50 

its  revival  of  ecclesiasticism,  16 

its  power  in  Moscow,  195 


296  INDEX 

Commerce,  Russian  conceptions  of,  1 5 

in  the  hands  of  strangers,  18 

injury  through  the  persecution,  258 
Corporal  punishment  revived  in  Russia, 
Czarina,  the,  140 
Czars,  German  characteristics  of  the,  42 

Dkmf.ntieff,  M.,  embezzlement  by,  8 
Deyel,  Israel,  petition  and  imprisonment  of,  222 
Dolgoroukoff,  Prince,  intrigue  against,  186 
Dournovo,  M.,  Minister  of  Inteiior,  147 

Education,  barbaric  notions  of  Nicholas  on,  84 
advantages  under  Alexander  II,  91 
discouraged  by  Government,  1 17 
Jews  practically  debarred  from,  154-9,  175 

Freemason,  a  Jewish,  178 

Frontier,  scenes  upon  the,  270 

Frug,  expulsion  of  the  young  poet,  249 

GiERS,  M.  de,  147 

Golitzyn,  Prince,  Governor  of  Moscow,  187 

author  of  Marina  Rostscha  atrocities,  212 
"  Golden  Age,"  The,  22^  9°  i^^  seg- 

sinister  ending  of,  in 
(iourko.  Gen.,  grave  suspicions  against,  120 

his  incrediole  brutality  in  Poland,  181 

marches  Jewish  recruits  by  ctapc,  183 
(Jroesser,  Gen.,  curious  character  of,  175 

in  St.  Petersburg,  248-52 

Hamburg,  principal  port  of  exodus,  270 

philanthropy  of  its  inhabitants,  274 

Hebrew  community  of,  275 

reception  and  disposal  of  refugees,  275-84 
Hirsch,  Baron  Maurice,  his  offer  to  lound  technical  schools,  159 

stupendous  character  of  his  colonisation  plan,  2S4 

Ignatieff,  Count  Nicholas,  his  connection_^with  the  Kotchubey 
estates,  70 
alliance  with  Suvorin,  114 
his  responsibility  for  the  war,  109 


INDEX  297 

Ignatieft",  career  of,  124 

reasons  for  downfall  of,  125-30 
Ignatieft",  Count  Alexis,  Governor-General  of  Kieff,  259 
Istomin,  M.,  illustrations  of  his  barbarity,  239-40 

Jews  in  Russia,  kept  by  law  a  race  apart,  16 

excuses  for  their  expulsion,  17 

combination  of  other  non-Russians  against  them,  18 

special  taxation  imposed  upon,  28 

restrictions  upon  the  worship  of,  29 

premiums  upon  the  conversion  of,  29 

special  oppression  of  conscription  upon,  29 

compelled  by  trick  to  furnish  more  than  their  share  of  annual 
recruits,  30 

unable  to  hold  commissions,  31 

restrictions  upon  their  business,  32 

demoralizing  effect  of  these  upon  character,  32 

early  history  of,  57 

their  unique  proselytising  experiment,  58 

medi;cval  persecution  and  obscurity,  60 

expulsion  by  Alexis,  62 

their  enormous  increase  by  conc|uest  and  the  Polisli  par- 
tition, 63 

dawn  of  the  ''milch  cow"  idea,  65 

given  the  grog-shops,  67 

advantages  derived  from  them,  67 

immunity  enjoyed  by  rich  Jewish  usurers  and  powerful 
miscreants,  70 

attempts  of  Nicholas  to  break  down  Judaism,  73-84 

recruiting  by  press-gangs,  76 

agricultural  and  military  colonie=,  74-9 

Jewish  solidarity  promoted  by  oppression,  79 

harmful  effects  of  this  isolation,  82 

immense  recuperative  power  of  the  race,  84 

"The  Clolden  Age,"  91 

artisans  allowed  to  leave  the  Pale,  94 

commercial  and  industrial  benefits  resulting,  98 

their  value  to  the  Russians,  103 

their  immunity  from  crime,  105 

rise  of  the  great  Jewish  contractors,  107-1 1 1 

the  Jews  not  given  to  political  conspiracy,  1 19 

anti-Semitic  riots  begin,  115 

the  May  laws,  128 


298  INDEX 

Jews,  the  reign  of  terror,  1 1-929 

Pobiedonostseff's  initial  blow,  154 

monstrous  educational  limitations,  1 54-9 

Sunday-trading  prohibition,  162 

driven  from  villages  into  towns,  165 

conflicting  definitions  of  laws,  167 

new  laws  devised,  170 

flour  mills  closed,  174 

Jewish  conversions,  177 

suppression  of  Jewish  paper,  183 

Moscow's  tragic  passover,  206 

atrocities  in  Zariadie  and  Marina  Rostscha,  199,  215 

expulsions  in  January  1892,  243 

Jewish  names  parodied  on  signs,  253 

blackmailed  in  Kieff,  263 

six  principal  outlets  of  escape  from  Russia,  269 
Judenhetze,  origin  in  Germany,  114 

its  hostile  reception  in  Hamburg,  275 

efforts  to  popularise  it  in  Russia,  116 

protest  of  Moscow  merchants  against,  1 16 

KaraiM  Jews,  their  origin,  58 

Kieff,  Polish  element  of  population  in,  259 
historic  importance  of,  261 
distinction  between  province  and  city  of,  262 
grotesque  paradox  of  Jewish  laws  in,  262 
anti-Semitic  craze  used  for  blackmail,  263 

Kostanda,  General,  19S 

Kotchubey,  Prince  Victor,  68 

spoliation  of  the  ancestral  estates,  70 

Literature,  decadence  of  Russian,  10 
Lutherans,  contemporary  persecution  of,  160 
forbidden  to  baptize  Jews,  176 

Mandelstamm,  Mrs.,  pathetic  story  of,  240 
Marina  Rostscha,  suburb  of,  209 

Horrors  of  raid  upon  it,  212-5 
*'  May  laws,"  promulgation  of  the,  128 

lapse  of,  1 53 

revival  of,  162 
Medicine,  earliest  opportunity  of  Jews  in  Russia,  ^;^ 
Melikoff,  Loris,  his  year  of  power,  121 


INDEX  299 

IMelikoff,  disgraced  and  exiled,  123 
Merchants  of  the  First  (3uild,  93,  253 
Military  discipline,  laxity  of,  i  i 
Military  service,  unfair  Jewish  share  of,  29 

offensive  Anti-Jewish  regulations,  31 
Moscow,  Oriental  character  of,  192  6 

Jewish  population  of,  197 

sudden  outburst  of  persecution  in,  199 

warning  by  a  baptised  Jew  in,  201 

Jewish  clerks  expelled  from,  204 

tragic  Passover  at,  2o5 

ruin  of  exiles  from,  222 

suspension  of  the  "Circulars"  in,  225 

the  flight  from,  227 

scenes  at  the  railway  at,  230 

Jews  sent  by  ctapc  from,  237 

commercial  bankruptcy  in,  255 
ATouJik,  the,  his  desire  n->t  to  be  civilised,  43 

his  Character  and  habits,  43  52 

Natchalnik,  the,  7 

Nicholas  I,  "The  Second  Hanian,"'  72  ct  scq. 
Nicholas,  Grand  Duke,  common  charges  against,  1  lo 
trick  upon,  by  Ignatieft",  131 

Ode-SSA,  Jewish  exodus  from,  256 

ruinous  consequences  of  the  persecution  to,  258 

Pale  of  Seiii.emkn"  r,  estal^lishmeiu  of,  ami  changes  in,  64 

boundaries  and  population,  23  7 

character  of  its  Jews,  ^-^2 

terriljle  poverty  in,  26 

restriction  in.  31 

physical  degenerations  in,  163 

theories  of  Russia's  design  in  missing  the  Jews  therein,  26S 
Pan-Slavism,  its  meaning,  5 

its  stronghold  in  Moscow,  194 
Passport,  vital  importance  of,  in  Russia,  249 

inspection  of,  at  frontier,  271 
Peter  the  Great,  futility  of  his  work,  40 
Ploeve,  M.  de,  responsible  for  the  "  sixty-five"  projects,  2r 
Pobiedonostseff,  M.,  remarkable  character  of,  14S 

persecuting  zeal  of,  151 


300  INDEX 

Poland,  Jews  in,  6i 

partitions  of,  63 

horrors  of  despotism  in,  181 
Protest  of  Liberals  of  1858,  180 

republication  in  1890  suppressed,  180 

Romanoff,  extinction  of  the  legitimate  line,  41 
Rothschilds,  Russian  hope  of  a  loan  from  them,  185 
failure  because  of  the  Moscow  atrocities,  218 

St.  Petersburg,  building  of,  40 

its  non-Russian  character,  245 

estimates  of  Jewish  population  in,  247 

expulsions  from,  175,  247,  55 
Serge,  Grand  Duke,  intrigue  attending  his  promotion,  188 

infamous  character  of,  190 

conversion  of  the  wife  of,  191,  221 

his  entr}'  into  Moscow,  220 

his  unpopularity  in  Moscow,  238 
Stundists,  the,  contemporary  persecution  of,  1 50 
Suvorin,  M.,  editor  of  yV<^7'^i?  I'rcmya,  1 12-16 

Tolstoi,  Count  Dmitri,  succeeds  Ignatieff,  131 

his  death  leaves  Pobiedonostseft' absolute,  161 
Tolstoi,  Count  Lyof,  signs  Protest  of  1890,  180 

Vannoffskv,  General,  Minister  of  War,  147 
Vishnegradsky,  M.,  his  rise  to  office,  147,  184 

opposition  to  the  persecution,  183 
Vladimir,  St.,  early  thoughts  of  embracing  Judaism,  59 
Vladimir,  Grand  Duke,  strong  character  of,  146 

his  speech  to  Lutherans  at  Riga,  160 
Vlasskofifsky,  new  chief  of  police  at  Moscow,  215 

YOURKOFFSKY,  Cossack  chief  of  police  at  Moscow,  14,  214 

ZariadIe  quarter  of  Moscow,  midnight  raids  upon,  199 


1 


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